Over the course of the weekend, the main Swiss railway company is throwing a party for the opening of the new Gotthard base tunnel - it'll shorten rail journeys between Zurich and Lugano by about 45 mins. The tunnel will come into full use in mid-December.
Central Lugano to central Zurich will fall to under 2 hours, while central Lugano to Zurich airport will come in around 2h20 allowing for a change of trains. Fast trains from Lugano run twice per hour. It should also be noted that central Lugano to Malpensa airport takes about 1 hour by road.
Anyone have an idea as to whether Lugano's main route to ZRH with Swiss/Austrian will survive in its current form ?