Company Watch - Swiss International.

Oct 1, 2007

Despite the similarity of area, the US has just one air traffic management organisation, compared to 47 in Europe, 21 en-route centres compared to 58 across the Atlantic and one operating control centre compared to 22 in Europe. Swiss International clearly has one eye on the beancounters here - a Single European Airspace could result in 12% less CO2 emissions with concomitant knock-on savings - but the potential for simplification would have a profound impact on day to day airline activity. Sep 25, 2007

Swiss demands Single Sky. Swiss International has made an impassioned plea for the long-vaunted Single European Airspace to turn from words into reality. At a press conference in Zurich this afternoon, Swiss CEO, Christophe Franz, demanded that politicians listen to airlines and end the patchwork fragmentation that costs carriers so much in time and delays. The concepts Franz was referring to are the genuine frustrations that European airlines feel, when comparing their airspace - 10.5m sq km, to that of the US - 9.8m sq km, but with the former suffering from glaring complexity generating waste and burgeoning bureaucracy. Sep 25, 2007

Swiss International Air Lines announced plans to introduce a first class cabin on all its inter-continental flights, as it progressively replaces its Airbus A330-200 aircraft with -300 variants. "We will be the only airline in the world to offer first class world-wide to all inter-continental destinations," said Swiss chief marketing and strategic officer, Christoph Beckmann. "This shows our growth in this segment - Swiss is more successful than most here. We will [also] improve business class to a significant extent with a fully flat seat and IFE that will be a huge step forward." First class will be available during 2008 on services to Boston and Miami, in 2009 to Bombay and Delhi, and in 2010 to Montreal, Nairobi and Dar Es Salem. Lounges in Zurich and Geneva are also to receive major upgrades. Sep 25, 2007

Swiss International Air Lines and its insurers have decided to repair the BAE Systems Avro RJ100 which was heavily damaged in a hard landing incident at London City airport last month. The aircraft is a seven-year old example registered HB-IYU owned by Zurich-based Anson Aircraft. It was operating from Geneva with 93 passengers and crew when it made the hard landing on 18 August. A Swiss International Air Lines spokesman says: [sup.3]The final decision has been taken to repair it.[sup.2] Early evaluations suggest that the repair work will take approximately 14 weeks, says the spokesman, although he declines to comment on the cost of the work. He says the aircraft suffered a tail scrape, cracks and severe damage during the landing, but declined to comment further on the cause which is subject to an ongoing investigation. Sep 24, 2007

Editorial eMail: [e-mail] For Air Transport & Travel Business Experts contact our Director of Content Aram Gesar eMail: [e-mail]

For more global news, reviews, features and analysis, please subscribe to our Newsletters: http://www.airguideonline.com/order_formsubs.htm#news

To Advertise: [e-mail]

AirGuideFlightTracker is a new real-time service that keeps travelers informed on flight and airport status, delays, security wait times via the Web. For more go to http://www.airguideonline.com/airline_tracker.htm

Copyright [c] 2007 Pyramid Media Group. All rights reserved.