SWISS Airlines has announced that it will further expand its network for Summer 2022 and will be adding six new destinations to its European route network.
Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) will serve a total of 119 destinations from Zurich and Geneva next summer, 93 within Europe and 26 in the rest of the world. SWISS travellers from Zurich will have a choice of 92 destinations, while customers in the Geneva region can choose from 46.
The airline says that within Europe, the focus will be on leisure and visiting-friends-and-relatives destinations and on the continent’s main centres, while the SWISS intercontinental network will put a particular emphasis on North American destinations. SWISS plans to restore its services to around 80% of their 2019 capacities by the 2022 third-quarter period. Of the 91 aircraft in the SWISS fleet, up to 59 short-haul aircraft (wet leases included) should be deployed in the 2022 summer schedules, along with up to 26 long-haul aircraft on intercontinental routes.
5 new destinations from Zurich
From Switzerland’s largest city, Zurich, the carrier plans to operate flights to 66 short-haul and 26 long-haul destinations in next summer’s schedules. These will include 5 new European destinations. As of end of March 2022, SWISS will operate flights to Bologna, the capital of Northern Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region; Nantes in Western France; the Bulgarian capital of Sofia and the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. The port city of Odessa in Southern Ukraine will also receive scheduled SWISS services from July 2022 onwards. The most frequently-served European destinations from Zurich next summer will include Berlin, Hamburg, London Heathrow and Amsterdam, while the biggest year-on-year increase in capacities will be seen on the Porto, Palermo, Tallinn and Billund routes.
Stay up to date: Sign up for my newsletter to never miss latest Aviation and Travel news.
On the long-haul front, the carrier says that it will be putting a clear focus on expanding its frequencies to and from North America in its 2022 summer schedules. New York JFK, Boston and Chicago will each receive twice-daily services, compared to the once-daily frequencies of summer 2021. It will also resume flights to Mumbai in January 2022 and Delhi in March 2022 which were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new twice-weekly service to Beirut which was introduced in winter 2021/22 will also be continued in the 2022 summer schedules, as will the present 2-weekly Zurich-Buenos Aires service via São Paulo.
Geneva-New York services expanded
SWISS will be expanding its services from Geneva, too, in Summer 2022. In addition to long-haul service to New York, travellers from Geneva will be offered a choice of 45 European destinations. These will include a new non-stop SWISS service between Geneva and the Belgian capital of Brussels to supplement the existing service on the route by sister Lufthansa Group carrier Brussels Airlines. SWISS will also be raising its Geneva-New York frequencies to up to 7-weekly flights. From Geneva, London Heathrow, Athens, Lisbon, Porto and Frankfurt will be among the European destinations served most frequently.
The 2022 summer timetable period will run from 27th March 2022 to 30th October 2022. For greater plannability, SWISS’s 2022 summer schedules will be published in two steps. The schedules up to and including 31st May 2022 have been published by the airline while the definitive schedules for 1st June 2022 to the end of October 2022 will be published on 12th January 2022. Flights for the new SWISS destinations are now bookable, however, for the whole summer timetable period.
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Chief Commercial Officer, SWISS, said:
While the pandemic situation is still tense, we remain confident that we will be able to further substantially expand our range of services for next summer under improved overall parameters. Our aim is to offer our customers a comprehensive and varied choice of SWISS flights. At the same time, the stability and the reliability of our schedules will remain one of our paramount priorities.
Meanwhile, SWISS recently began trials of a new concept to reduce food waste onboard.
Featured image by SWISS
What do you think of SWISS’ Summer 2022 schedule? Let me know in the comments section below.
Follow IH Aviation and Travel on Social Media on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.