More customer choice on SWISS

SWISS is offering attractive product innovations in its 2007 summer schedules, with more intercontinental services and a wide range of European connections. With Valencia added to the network, SWISS will serve 70 destinations in 42 countries in its summer timetable.

Non-stop service will also be provided between Switzerland and 13 further destinations under codeshare agreements with partner airlines. The SWISS summer timetable will operate from March 25 to October 28, 2007.

SWISS is in the climb, and is expanding its product for the benefit of its customers. The company effected the first-ever expansion of its long-haul fleet last November, adding two further Airbus A330s. These will be followed by the arrival of three more Airbus A340s over the next 12 months. On the short-haul front, in addition to the expansion of the European fleet by three Airbus A320-family aircraft that was announced last year, SWISS will be putting two more Airbus A320s into service sooner than their original introduction date of 2008.

The planned expansion is being brought forward to take earlier advantage of existing market opportunities. The two new A320s will now join the SWISS fleet in the first half of 2007. Their arrival will also create a further 50 new jobs among the company’s flying personnel.

The expansions of its European and intercontinental fleets will primarily enable SWISS to increase frequencies to existing destinations in its new summer schedules and thus further align its service patterns to customer needs.

More flexibility for the business traveller

SWISS now offers daily service to and from Tokyo, having increased its weekly frequencies from six to seven on February 19. SWISS is the only airline with non-stop service between Zurich and Japan. From mid-July onwards, SWISS will also provide daily service between Zurich and Los Angeles, Santiago de Chile (via São Paulo) and Johannesburg. All these destinations were previously served six times a week.

The additional flights can be offered thanks to this summer’s arrival of the first further Airbus A340 for the SWISS long-haul fleet. By increasing the flights to these key intercontinental destinations to a daily service pattern, SWISS can offer its customers even more flexibility when planning their travel arrangements.

SWISS has been introducing attractive innovations with its ground product, too. All SWISS flights to and from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, for example, are now handled at the airport’s Terminal 1. The new terminal location not only features efficient state-of-the-art and customer-friendly passenger handling processes and procedures; it also further facilitates and intensifies the SWISS/Lufthansa collaboration.

More flights and destinations in Europe

SWISS will be operating larger aircraft on its services between Zurich and Düsseldorf, Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg from this summer onwards, further consolidating its strong position with Lufthansa in these important markets. SWISS and Lufthansa jointly offer 600 flights a week between Switzerland and Germany. SWISS will also be using larger aircraft to further increase its seating capacity on services to Amsterdam, Belgrade, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Milan, Nice and Stockholm.

In another innovation designed to give customers greater travel flexibility, SWISS will now be providing an additional 20:00 evening departure from Zurich to London City Airport, which is conveniently close to the city centre, while customers from London City will be offered an 07:00 departure for Zurich that should prove especially useful to the business traveller. With the introduction of the new flights, SWISS will offer comprehensive service between Zurich and London City at roughly two-hour intervals.

SWISS customers who travel from Basel and Geneva are benefiting from numerous innovations, too. SWISS’s Basel-based network was expanded from four to ten destinations in mid-January. As a result, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Budapest, London City, Manchester, Nice, Prague, Warsaw and Zurich are now far easier to reach. The new services are also being offered at highly attractive fares.

Service from Geneva will be expanded with the addition of Valencia, which becomes the 70th destination in the SWISS network. As Official Carrier to the Alinghi Team, the defenders in this year’s prestigious America’s Cup sailing competition which will be held in the city, SWISS will be transporting team members and yachting enthusiasts between Geneva and Valencia with its four weekly flights. SWISS also increased its service between Geneva and London City last December, raising it from four to six times a day. Geneva ground services will be boosted in May with the opening of a new joint SWISS/Lufthansa lounge, following an extensive refurbishment and modernisation of the facility over the past few months.

Codeshare agreements

SWISS also offers its customers non-stop service to a further 13 destinations from Switzerland through codeshare agreements with various airline partners. One of these, SAS, will be operating a second daily codeshare flight between Zurich and Oslo from April onwards.

SWISS customers from Geneva enjoy additional flights to Brussels, Copenhagen and Düsseldorf that are operated by Brussels Airlines, SAS and Lufthansa respectively under codeshare collaborations with SWISS. And SWISS now also offers non-stop services between Geneva and Warsaw which are operated by its Star Alliance partner LOT Polish Airlines under a codeshare agreement.

SWISS’s Basel-based network is also supplemented by four further destinations served by partner carriers under codeshare arrangements. Service to Frankfurt, Munich and Düsseldorf is offered under a codeshare agreement with Lufthansa, while Vienna is served in a codeshare with Austrian Airlines.

South African Airways will be withdrawing its non-stop service between Zurich and Johannesburg in May 2007. In view of this, SWISS will not only be extending its own operations on the route to a daily service; it will also be operating all these flights on a codeshare basis with its Star Alliance partner. The new codeshare arrangement will offer SWISS customers an attractive range of onward connections from Johannesburg to selected destinations including Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Windhoek.

The SWISS aircraft fleet for the 2007 summer schedules

SWISS will operate its own services in the 2007 summer timetable with a fleet of 73 aircraft. Of these, 49 (seven Airbus A319s, 16 A320s, six A321s, eleven A330s and nine A340s) will be operated by Swiss International Air Lines, while Swiss European Air Lines will start the summer schedules with a fleet of 24 Avro RJ85/100s.

Greater seating comfort on the European fleet

SWISS passengers will soon enjoy enhanced seating comfort and more generous legroom on all European flights. Having equipped its Airbus A320s with new seating, the airline is now extending its seat upgrade programme to its A321s and A319s. In a further comfort enhancement, SWISS leaves the middle seat free in the Business Class cabin on all its European Airbus flights. The Airbus seat re-equipment programme should be largely completed by the end of March. Attention will then turn to Swiss European’s Avro RJs, which should also have the new lighter and more comfortable seats fitted fleetwide by February 2008.

The new seats not only offer SWISS customers an even pleasanter inflight experience. With their lower weight, they also reduce each flight’s fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, further enhancing the environmental credentials of SWISS’s European aircraft fleet.