SWISS will serve a total of 70 destinations (47 European and 23 intercontinental) in 38 countries in its 2012 summer schedules. The services will be provided by a 90-aircraft fleet: 84 of SWISS’s own and a further six operating under wet-lease agreements. The summer schedules are valid from 25 March to 27 October 2012, and may be viewed in full on the swiss.com website.
Services from Zurich
On its European network from its Zurich hub, SWISS is increasing its services to Prague from three to four a day, while Bucharest receives a second daily flight. Genoa has also joined the SWISS Zurich network, served twice daily since 8 March with the flights operated by partner carrier Darwin Airline under a codeshare agreement. Elsewhere, SWISS is reducing its capacity slightly to certain regions such as the UK, Benelux and Germany, and will also be cancelling a small number of flights in the summer months.
On its Zurich-based intercontinental network, SWISS is raising its frequencies to Chicago to eleven flights a week. Service to Newark is also being expanded from six times weekly to daily; and the flights will now be operated using SWISS’s own Airbus A340 equipment seating 219 passengers from the start of the summer schedules. Frequencies to the recently-added destination of Beijing will also be increased to a daily service from the end of May. Services on the Zurich-Cairo route will be reduced to four times weekly for the summer months. Service to Cameroon will be withdrawn with the cutover to the summer schedules, for economic reasons.
Services from Geneva
SWISS will also be making individual adjustments to its European services from Geneva in its summer schedules. Nice will receive a third daily flight; and both the third daily service to Madrid and the second daily Athens flight introduced in February will also be retained. Services from Geneva underwent further expansion on 8 March: under a codeshare agreement with Darwin Airline, SWISS now offers direct flights from Geneva to Luxembourg, Genoa and Lugano. Further SWISS/Darwin Airline codeshare services to Florence and Venice will be added with the start of the summer schedules. Elsewhere, individual flights will be cancelled on selected routes (e.g. to the UK and Spain) in the summer months in response to lack of demand.
Services from Basel
SWISS will be adopting a revised range of services from EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg on 21 May. In addition to the existing destinations of Hamburg, Barcelona, Prague and Rome, London City will return to the Basel-based network, served twice a day using SWISS’s own equipment. Copenhagen, Budapest and Manchester will no longer be served directly from Basel, but will still be easily reachable via Zurich. Brussels remains in SWISS’s Basel network with two daily flights, though these will now be operated by partner carrier Brussels Airlines under a codeshare agreement.
Edelweiss Air and SWISS leisure flights
SWISS’s sister carrier Edelweiss Air will be offering a wide range of services to popular vacation destinations in the summer months. From Zurich Edelweiss Air will be adding Alicante and Madeira to its European programme, while the long-haul network will see the addition of Tampa (Florida) flights. Edelweiss Air will also be providing a twice-weekly summer service between Zurich and Tokyo which will supplement SWISS’s own services on the route.
