Swiss International Airlines - Swiss International Airlines

Brief information
IATA code	LX
Seat	Basel, Switzerland
Passenger volume	13.5 million (2008)
aims	At home and abroad
alliance	Star Alliance
Internet	www.swiss.com
phone	0848 700 700 (Switzerland)

The Swiss International Air Lines (short Swiss) is the national airline of Switzerland. She is a daughter of Lufthansa and serves destinations domestically and on several continents.

history

Swiss is the successor company to the former Swissair. It had to file for bankruptcy in December 2001 due to poor management and financial problems. While Swissair was a state airline, Swiss is now organized under private law and is owned by German Lufthansa. The predecessor company was the Crossair, which was renamed Swiss International Air Lines in May 2002.

fleet

Swiss currently operates 59 aircraft from the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, and another 5 have been ordered. The average age of the fleet is 10.5 years. ^[1]

For long-haul flights, Swiss uses aircraft of the types Airbus A340-300 and A330 one, with the approximately 10-year-old A330-200 being replaced by brand new A330-300. Machines of the fly on short and medium-haul routes A320-Family - A319, A320 and A321. There are 20 aircraft on regional routes Avro RJ100 used by the subsidiary Swiss Global Air Lines operate. A further eight aircraft from other airlines are currently in use for the Swiss company, while the subsidiary has four of its own aircraft Edelweiss Air were submitted.

Aircraft type	number	Average age	airline
Airbus A319	7	13 years
Airbus A320	20	13 years
Airbus A321	6	14 years
Airbus A330-200	2	11 years
A330-300	10	under 1 year
A340-300	15	9 years
Airbus A319	1	6 years	BMI (British Midland)
Airbus A320	3	11 years	Edelweiss Air
Airbus A330-200	1	ten years	Edelweiss Air
Avro RJ 100	20	13 years	Swiss European
Saab 2000	1	14 years	Darwin Airlines
Boeing business jet	1	5 years	PrivatAir
Fokker 100	2	16 years	Contact Air
Fokker 100	3	18 years	Helvetic

Alliances

Swiss is a member of the world's largest aviation alliance, the Star Alliance. Together with the parent company Lufthansa, from which Swiss was taken over in June 2007, offers flights to all continents and customers benefit from a wide range of possible flights. This also includes the frequent flyer program Miles & More (more on this hereIn addition, the subsidiary flies Swiss Global 100% participation also flies on routes within Europe with smaller equipment as well as with newly acquired Boeing 777 aircraft on worldwide routes, and in popular holiday areas Edelweiss Airwhich also regularly operates SWISS routes in Europe in wet lease. On short-haul routes, Swiss also uses Fokker 100 and Embraer 190 aircraft from Helvetic Airways. Bombardier Dash-8 2000s currently fly from Zurich to Lugano Austrian Airlines on behalf of Swiss and between Zurich and Newark flies PrivatAir for the largest Swiss airline.

Route network and hubs

SWISS flies to numerous destinations both within Europe and across the continent. The turnstiles are in Zurich and Geneva, Basel-Mulhouse Airport was given up as a destination and hub in 2015.

An important intercontinental target country for the Swiss are United States. Alone new York is served up to three times a day from Zurich and daily from Geneva. In Canada it is Montreal only goal. In addition to other flights to Asia, Africa and North America also has the destination Sao Paulo as the only South American destination of great importance for Swiss.

Through codeshare agreements with several airlines of the Star Alliance as well as outside of Switzerland, Swiss has been able to expand its route network.

The sister company in the Lufthansa Group is an important partner in the flight offer Edelweiss Air, which also offers a larger route network from Zurich. To the website

Classes of carriage

Depending on the flight connection, SWISS offers three transport classes: Economy Class, Business Class and First Class.

Economy Class offers cabin seating with 8 seats in a row (2-4-2) on long-haul routes in the Airbus A330 and A340, while classic 3-3 seating is offered on shorter routes with smaller aircraft (exception: Avro RJ and Fokker 100 the Helvetic 2-3 each, Embraer 190 the Helvetic 2-2).

In Business Class, long-haul passengers (A330 / A340) will find a staggered seating arrangement with up to 5 seats per row (2-2-1 or 1-2-2). These seats can be laid completely flat. On shorter routes with a smaller aircraft, the first rows of normal economy class seating are also used for business class, although the middle seat is kept free for groups of three (this does not apply to the port side in the Avro JR and the Fokker 100 and both sides of the Embraer 190, where basically only 2 places are available - here only one place is used per row and side).

In First Class, which is only offered on long-haul connections, the traveler will find two different products depending on the aircraft used, both of which are characterized by a seating arrangement of 4 seats in a row (1-2-1). The newer product on all Airbus A330s as well as the Boeing 777 offers, in addition to a revised design and new seats with variable air cushioning, in particular an additional, retractable privacy screen. The aging of the First Class interior on Airbus A340 aircraft, however, does not offer these comfort features.

Lounges

SWISS operates its own lounges at its hubs | Zurich and Geneva as well as in Chicago and New York JFK. At most other airports in the route network, business and first class guests as well as Miles & More status customers can use the lounges of the StarAlliance partner airlines or contract lounges.

In Zurich, business and first class travelers as well as Miles & More Frequent Travelers, Senators (and other StarAlliance Gold members) and HON Circle status customers have three business and Senator lounges (one each in the Schengen and two in the Non-Schengen area), an arrival lounge ("SWISS Arrival Lounge", only open until 1 p.m.) and two first-class lounges are available. The catering offered ranges from pre-warmed ready meals and soups in the business and senator lounges to freshly prepared, à la carte full menus in the first class lounges. Three of the six lounges in the Schengen area (Business A, First Class A and Arrival) are equipped with showers, visitors to the Senator Lounge in Departure Area A can use the showers in the adjacent Business Class Lounge. All lounges offer free, unlimited WiFi reception that requires registration (via SMS or at the lounge reception).

Frequent flyer program

The Swiss bonus program is called Miles & More (German Miles and more) and was originally introduced by Lufthansa. As a passenger, you collect so-called award miles, which you can redeem for material assets, and status miles, which give you better service or other advantages at the airports and on board. Anyone can sign up for free on the program's website at www.miles-and-more.com or register using a registration form in the on-board magazine. You can now use the Star Alliance Earn miles and there are many other partners with whom this is possible, such as rental car companies, hotels, insurance companies and newspaper subscriptions. There is also a Miles & More credit card with which you can automatically collect one award mile for every CHF 2 spent.

Award miles you collect on every flight or when you shop at one of the partners. These can then be exchanged for prizes in kind. This includes, for example, free flights or upgrades to a better booking class (e.g. from Economy to Business), but also discounts with partners. Lufthansa operates its own chain of stores with branches at several airports, called World Shop. Similarly, Swiss has its first in June 2010 Swiss Shop opened at Zurich Airport. Here you can pay for all or some of the items with miles. You can also pay for goods sold on board with miles.

Status miles can only be collected on flights with Lufthansa and some partner airlines. The number of miles earned depends on the booking class and the length of the flight route. The higher the class and the longer the route, the more miles you collect. The number of miles earned in a calendar year determines the customer's "status". From 35,000 status miles (or 30 individual flights, with transfer connections counting as two flights) you are Frequent traveler, from 100,000 senator and from 600,000 miles within two consecutive calendar years one receives the status of one HON Circle Member. Depending on your status, you have various advantages, such as higher free baggage allowances, access to the respective lounges or priority at check-in.

Check in

Check-in is possible either at the airport (at the counter or at the machine) or online. With the latter method, both a desktop website and mobile websites and mobile apps for Android and iOS are available, whereby it is possible to choose a seat yourself. On many connections, when booking online, you can specify whether you want to be checked in automatically. You will automatically receive a boarding pass by e-mail some time before departure, which in principle corresponds to the regular online check-in. However, this service is not possible at departure airports where the check-in is carried out by a partner airline (e.g. Lufthansa or SAS). In this case, the passenger must also use the respective service of the partner airline for the regular online check-in. Boarding passes sent by email also contain a Passbook file as an attachment for use with mobile devices running iOS version 6 or higher and with various corresponding Android apps.

Booking options

Tickets can be booked either through a travel agency or directly on the web swiss.com or by phone:

• Switzerland: 0848 700 700
• Germany: 0180 300 03 37 (EUR 0.09 / min)
• Austria: 0810 810 840

further booking numbers from other countries

Web links

www.swiss.com - Official website of the airline

Individual evidence