SWISS further strengthens position in Geneva; new destination of London Heathrow
23-Nov-2009 SWISS will be further expanding its range of services between Geneva and London on 10 January 2010. An additional aircraft will be stationed in Geneva to operate the new flights. SWISS and its sister Lufthansa Group airline British Midland (bmi) also plan to collaborate more closely on their services between Switzerland and the UK.
SWISS is steadily expanding its services to and from Geneva, despite the continuing economic crisis. From 10 January 2010 onwards, SWISS will offer six new daily services between Geneva and London Heathrow. Together with a modified service of four daily flights to London City (compared to the present six), SWISS will be doubling the number of seats it offers to and from the important London market, and further strengthening its position at and around Geneva.
"No other airline offers a more attractive range of services to London's biggest and most central airports," says SWISS CEO Harry Hohmeister, commenting on the expansion. "And it's our business success in Geneva that's enabling us to further expand our network and take active advantage of the market opportunities here."
The new services between Geneva and London Heathrow will be operated by two aircraft of the Airbus A320 family. In an initial phase, one of these will be provided by bmi, SWISS's new sister airline within the Lufthansa Group. Later, however, SWISS will operate all these London Heathrow services with its own equipment. A further SWISS Airbus A320 will be stationed in Geneva for this purpose.
SWISS's present four-times-weekly service between Geneva and Bucharest is to be withdrawn owing to insufficient market demand. Customers from the Geneva region can continue to travel to and from Romania, however, via a daily Zurich connection.
The planned collaboration with bmi will not be limited to the Geneva-London Heathrow route, either, but should be extended to all flights between Switzerland and the UK: in future, every one of the more than 430 weekly SWISS services between the two countries should be operated together with bmi under codeshare arrangements.