SWISS To Add New UK Route, But Staying Conservative

Credit: Robert Büchel / Alamy Stock Photo

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) plans to launch service to Bristol (BRS), England, in the first quarter of 2023.

The route between Zurich (ZRH) and BRS is the one new service unveiled with this week’s release of the Lufthansa Group carrier’s winter 2022/23 schedule. The ZRH-BRS service will be flown 1X-weekly from Feb. 4, 2023. The route will be operated with a combination of a SWISS Airbus A220 aircraft and a wet-leased Helvetic Airways Embraer E190 regional jet.

“The new route should prove especially popular among winter sports enthusiasts in the UK,” SWISS said in a statement.

The Star Alliance carrier said new routes launched this summer from Zurich to Bologna (BLQ) in Italy, Nantes (NTE) in France, Sofia (SOF) in Bulgaria and Vilnius (VNO) in Lithuania will remain in the network during the coming winter season starting Oct. 30.

From Geneva (GVA), the most extensively served SWISS destinations during the winter schedule will be Athens (ATH), Lisbon (LIS), London Heathrow (LHR), Marrakech (RAK) in Morocco, Nice (NCE) in France and Porto (OPO) in Portugal.

SWISS will fly to 26 destinations from GVA while serving to 83 destinations from ZRH (61 beyond Europe) during the winter period.

The airline is aiming to operate total capacity for the Oct. 30, 2022-March 26, 2023 period that is 80% of pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels.

CCO Tamur Goudarzi Pour said SWISS is being “conservative in our planning and have reduced our flight program by a number of frequencies to ensure that we can keep our schedules as stable as possible.”

Aaron Karp

Aaron Karp is a Contributing Editor to the Aviation Week Network.