There are not enough planes in Switzerland

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Air traffic is reviving. “We’re not there yet when it comes to punctuality,” Switzerland Chief Commercial Officer Tamur Goudarzi Pour told the media. This is mainly due to the many strikes and structural bottlenecks in air traffic control in Germany, Italy and France. Additionally, main hub airports will have to deal with restrictions that will affect Switzerland’s flight schedule.

“We still assume we’ll be flying steadily in the summer,” said Goudarzi Pour. Larger scale cuts are not expected. A relatively large fleet of chartered aircraft also contributes to this. There are currently 14 aircraft from Helvetic, two from Edelweiss and eight from Air Baltic. The reason for this is 8 Swiss Airbus A220s, which could not take off due to the engine manufacturer’s inability to supply important spare parts.

Due to the current constraints on the supply side, the top priority is to further consolidate the current offer. An example of this is China. Air traffic to Shanghai resumed here in the spring. On the winter flight schedule from this October, six flights a week will again fly there. When asked by the AWP news agency, he said seven connections are planned for Hong Kong.

No direct connection to Beijing

But in the short term there will be no direct connection from Zurich to Beijing. He said a separate decision should be made later on whether to stop traffic to the Chinese capital. However, demand for flights to and from China is good and growing. The recent removal of corona tests may accelerate demand again. Overall, Goudarzi Pour is looking forward to a good summer despite limited capacity.

Initially, new long-distance connections should not be either. New destinations could only be added again in 2024. “We want to connect more global metropolises to Switzerland,” said Goudarzi Pour. You will be informed accordingly in a few months.

1800 vacancies

Thanks to its high leasing rate, Swiss is now able to keep its operations at about 85 percent of pre-crisis level with good overall capacity utilization. For 2024, Goudarzi Pour did not want to rule out the possibility of regaining the value of 2019, but it is still too early to make an exact prediction. But overall he was very optimistic about this and next year.

To cope with the growth, Swiss plans to continue to hire large numbers of staff. 1,800 people will be hired this year alone. It should be 1000 again in 2024. Applicants are also doing well and the airline receives many applications. According to Goudarzi Pour, almost all areas are leased on land, in the air, and also in administration. (pbe/SDA)

Source :Blick