steven.fleming: Swiss To Build Out Geneva ? Civil Aviation Forum ...
According to Travel Inside Swiss is planning to strengthen its position with a crew basis in Geneva and a local leadership organization. From a route perspective it plans to increase seasonal flights to Malaga and Palma as well as to Olbia and Catania next summer while reducing the flights to Athens to 1 daily. It plans to further increase its network with the arrival of the C-Series
Over the weekend, there was an interesting article about an interview with Harry Hohmeister about the renewal of parts of the long distance fleet: It seems that Swiss is looking at the 777 or 350's (no suprise) and plans to make a decision within the next 6 - 12 months
Quoting nyswiss (Thread starter): Over the weekend, there was an interesting article about an interview with Harry Hohmeister about the renewal of parts of the long distance fleet: It seems that Swiss is looking at the 777 or 350's (no suprise) and plans to make a decision within the next 6 - 12 months
http://www.sonntagonline.ch/ressort/...2603/
Being an all Airbus Airline now, i doubt they'll look at the 777. A350 shares commonality being an Airbus and they might be the winning candidate here.
Talking about hubs, will LX follow LH and have two hubs across their network?
Quoting jayeshrulz (Reply 1): Being an all Airbus Airline now, i doubt they'll look at the 777. A350 shares commonality being an Airbus and they might be the winning candidate here.
Talking about hubs, will LX follow LH and have two hubs across their network?
From everything I have heard so far, they seem fairly serious about the B777-300ER as it is available earlier and already performs really well for many carriers with comparable networks.
I think they are more targeting O&D demand in Geneva than trying to build up a real second hub.
Quoting jayeshrulz (Reply 1):
Being an all Airbus Airline now, i doubt they'll look at the 777. A350 shares commonality being an Airbus and they might be the winning candidate here.
One could argue the blind transition to the Airbus fleet without properly evaluating aircraft led to the demise of Swissair. The A350 may be the airplane they choose, but I'd hope they do a better job of evaluating aircraft needs in terms of size of fleet and total acquired debt.
They already ordered the Cseries, so I don't think they are completely committed to Airbus exclusivity.
[Edited 2012-11-12 10:07:51]
From what I'm reading (translating), they seem to be leaning towards the 77W. It would be more economical, especially with regards to keeping fuel costs down, plus they could use aircraft with 50 more seats. Also the 777 would be available sooner than the 350 which they could not get until 2018.
The article also states they are not interested in receiving 346's from LH because the per-passenger costs are too high.
in any event, if they need to expand now, they'll need higher capacity and/or more aircraft sooner than later. So, they may need to lease some 346s, if just for a short time.
DED
Quoting FI642 (Reply 2): Didn't SR have a hub for a while at GVA? If my memory serves me correctly it was pulled down as it simply wasn't profitable.
GVA was a hub for decades, and got killed offin the late 90s. As I recall, after their withdrawal, the only direct flights Swissair had out of GVA was London, Paris, Moscow and New York. Everything else was served via an hourly feeder route to Zurich.
I worked in Geneva at the time, and my employer (a multinational with probably 50 employees flying on any given day) which used to be very loyal to Swissair pretty much abandoned Swissair in favor of Lufthansa. If you HAD to make layovers, Frankfurt had much better connections than Zurich.
Quoting Roseflyer (Reply 4): One could argue the blind transition to the Airbus fleet without properly evaluating aircraft led to the demise of Swissair. The A350 may be the airplane they choose, but I'd hope they do a better job of evaluating aircraft needs in terms of size of fleet and total acquired debt.
That's a bit harsh. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with Airbuses, but I do know a number of people who refuse to fly them, because they have a FBW system that "knows better than the pilot" - they prefer the more traditional systems such as Boeing offers (still FBW, but more easily overridden in case of emergency). I'm not sure if the number of people who think like this are significant, but they are out there.
These news are a bit misleading as for the upcoming summer schedule LX will actually reduce overall flying from GVA by 17 weekly frequencies. However, the number of destinations increase due to the addition of CTA and OLB.
[Edited 2012-11-12 11:55:39]
[Edited 2012-11-12 11:58:47]
Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 12): That's a bit harsh. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with Airbuses, but I do know a number of people who refuse to fly them, because they have a FBW system that "knows better than the pilot" - they prefer the more traditional systems such as Boeing offers (still FBW, but more easily overridden in case of emergency). I'm not sure if the number of people who think like this are significant, but they are out there.
I don't have anything wrong with Airbus airplanes. My point is that Swissair did not do a very good job with fleet planning in the 1990s for their own fleet. They pushed Sabena to rapidly replace airplanes that didn't need replacing. Swissair also ordered A340-600s which were too big.
I don't think Swiss will do that again, but am hoping they do a better job with fleet planning.
Quoting Thomas_Jaeger (Reply 3): From everything I have heard so far, they seem fairly serious about the B777-300ER as it is available earlier and already performs really well for many carriers with comparable networks.
The global economy is recovering too sluggishly to make earlier delivery dates crucial for LX's expansion. How much sooner could they have 77Ws flying for them than A350s? 1, maybe 2 years?
Besides, the LH group is trying very hard to harmonize their fleet. If Boeing builds the 787-1 and LH buys it (likely), then LX will likely become an all 787 widebody airline as a result. If they don't, the A350 will most likely succeed the A340s.
Quoting OM617 (Reply 6): The article also states they are not interested in receiving 346's from LH because the per-passenger costs are too high.
They aren't even buying their own planes. They buy them with/through LH. If LH has spare A346s because of weakening markets, or because of new 748s arriving, there is just no way introducing a new aircraft type (77W) will make any financial sense in the long run. The A346 would require no re-training, no delivery time, no acquisition cost - those savings alone should pay for the additional fuel bill. Furthermore, if Airbus' projections are to be believed then the A350 will be more efficient relative to the 77W, than the 77W is to the A346. So over a 10 years period, 5 years of A346 and 5 years of A350 should come with a lower fuel bill as 10 years of 77W.
Even if it is not mentioned in the article, but I see LX going for the 787. I'm fairly certain Boeing will build the 787-1.
Quoting Roseflyer (Reply 4): One could argue the blind transition to the Airbus fleet without properly evaluating aircraft led to the demise of Swissair.
Yes but then one could look at the facts and realize that this was not the reason.
People on here put way too much emphasis on an airline's choice of aircraft. Air France has all those 777s, yet they keep losing money. LH is making money with A340-600s. KL with MD11s. Condor is the only airline in the Thomas Cook group that doesn't operate A330s but 767s and they're the only profitable airline in the group. Ryanair is making money with 737s, Air Asia is making money with A320s.
There are advantages to having airplanes of only one manufacturer (economies of scale, bargaining power etc.), as there are for having a diverse fleet (risk spread, ironically bargaining power as well, etc.). What is important is the right size of your aircraft. If you can't fill them, you can't turn a profit. If you're too small, the competition will push you out of the market. This has nothing to do whatsoever with who is providing those capacities to you.
Quoting something (Reply 16): People on here put way too much emphasis on an airline's choice of aircraft. Air France has all those 777s, yet they keep losing money. LH is making money with A340-600s. KL with MD11s. Condor is the only airline in the Thomas Cook group that doesn't operate A330s but 767s and they're the only profitable airline in the group. Ryanair is making money with 737s, Air Asia is making money with A320s.
There are advantages to having airplanes of only one manufacturer (economies of scale, bargaining power etc.), as there are for having a diverse fleet (risk spread, ironically bargaining power as well, etc.). What is important is the right size of your aircraft. If you can't fill them, you can't turn a profit. If you're too small, the competition will push you out of the market. This has nothing to do whatsoever with who is providing those capacities to you.
Exactly. There is no such thing as a "good" aircraft or a "bad" aircraft, and there is not - generally speaking - a "right" aircraft and a "wrong" aircraft.
For an airline, there are two types of aircraft. Those that work for you, and those that don't. And how the two types are defined can vary massively depending on the precise circumstances specific to your airline. Fuel consumption is one factor - usually an important one - but there are a lot more aspects that need to be looked at.
Quoting FI642 (Reply 2): Didn't SR have a hub for a while at GVA? If my memory serves me correctly it was pulled down as it simply wasn't profitable.
GVA was a secondary hub for Swissair, mainly for routes like French-speaking points in Africa and other points with a lot of O&D traffic. Swissair almost abandoned GVA in the mid-'90s, moving most routes to ZRH except the daily GVA-JFK route and a very few Europe routes. That gave Swissair a very bad name in the GVA market although it was the correct decision strategically to make ZRH as strong a competitor as possible for other major hubs.
I can't see LX making GVA a significant hub again. Switzerland is much too small for two hubs 150 miles apart. Much of their current GVA service is targeted at competing with the LCCs, mainly EasyJet (by far the largest operator at GVA), often with very low fares.
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