New Swissair Goes AirBorNe

[avt100]

New Swiss airline takes to the skies

air yesterday morning, combining the services of the defunct carrier Swissair and regional airline Crossair.

The first Swiss flight was a 30-minute hop from Basel to Zurich -- the two headquarters of the new airline. The early morning flight took off half an hour late because of the media interest, said spokesman Patrick Jeandrain.

The airline's new boss, André Dose, was aboard the nearly full flight, Mr. Jeandrain said.

Mr. Dose, formerly head of Crossair, told Swiss radio that he was "optimistic" about the airline's future. He said reservations for flights so far had been better than expected.

:D

More at AV Industry News (http://luchtvaart.pagina.nl)

[Few Cloudy]

That's a useful flight, BSL to ZRH - Flight record around 13 minutes - used to be faster to BSL in the days when you could land visual on RW34. Taxi from Basel station to the airport around 20 minutes, checkin and boarding 35 minutes, checkout and customs in ZRH 20 minutes, taxi to Zurich station 25 minutes.


Depending on traffic and delays, compare train from Basel to Zurich and guess who wins?

[gofer]

That is why the old schedules of 9 to 11 positioning flights a day have gone 3-4 at the most and NEVER when you need them.

On the other hand there is a absolutely grat SBB - FlugZug that runs just about every hour - just like clockwork - even if the connecting flights are late and there is snow, fog, ice, whatever.

Planes are not for puddle jumping - up to 300Km its usually as quick by fast train city center to city center.

[Alpha Leader]

gofer: still no domestic terminal at ZRH?

[gofer]

That's the downstairs part of the Terminals A&B - silly!

What is great is the new "Aircraft Auction Hall" that the Kanton has financed between the 3 main runways.

It would seem that they already have an overflow of things to auction off - looking at the way things are parked around the building.:D :cool: :eek:

[Alpha Leader]

gofer: I meant as in "no immigration - no customs", ie. the internationally accepted terminology of a domestic terminal

[blue belly]

Have just heard that the flight attendants have just rejected their new Collective Working Agreement!!!

Not good for the new start I presume...

[gofer]

So did I -

There is no immigration and no customs when flying on the the SBB's FlugZug from BSL to ZRH, and in Kloten the train arrives "downstairs" in its own terminal in the celler. :p

SBB also runs services to other Swiss Airports GVA Cointrin for one - and you can also go to BRN and LUG from ZRH. :o

In fact the FlugZug must be the only "Flight" that has check-in on board and - at least so far - NO searches and NO baggage x-ray - and you do your own baggage handling - Sowthwest, Go, Ryan, Easy don't copy them too close now. :(

OK jokes over - SBB's FlugZug is a train (2 man crew only - a jockey front left and a senior steward F/A and check-in all in 1) and it can be stratched to be a 600+ seater immediately - so fleet management and efficiency are high - think of that Airbus & Boeing. :cool:

[Alpha Leader]

gofer: point taken: no immigration and customs cr@p on the train - but where are the domestic terminals in Kloten, Cointrin and Basel/Mulhouse? Has there really been no progress over the last 20 years?

[Air Bus Driver]

Alpha Leader:

With the relatively little amount of domestic airline movement within Switzerland, it's probably just not worth having an own terminal...

In addition, most of the domestic pax inbound to ZRH are just connecting to an international flight anyway!


Cheers, ABD

[Alpha Leader]

Thanks, ABD. I'm probably being mislead by the LX route map which shows service to six domestic destinations.

Cheers

[gofer]

ABD

Thanks so much better put.

AL

Change in the last 20 years - Chalk & Cheese.
High percentages of countryside are gone - they've almost finished the Highway network satrted in 1964 - and of course its way too small.
Around 7 Mio. people, over 3 Mio vehicules on the road and 50% more in the lots waiting for buyers - with an average time to resell near 60 days.
Handy (mobile phone) penetration over 60% of complete population - all kids to Granny's have one.
Private PC-population around 2 Mio with around 2 Mio families :confused: (so the next generation will be imported - already is really). Etc., etc.

If you want to look around - try some of these for starters, or e-mail ([email protected]) me I'm only just around the corner at the moment in the SAR.

Country Portal (http://www.switzerland.com/):)
Town Guides (http://www.swisstownguide.ch/) :o
Basel (http://www.basel.ch/index-ie.php?lang=en&page_id=108) ;)
Bern (http://www.berne.ch/de/intro/index_1024.html) :o
another Bern (http://www.bern.ch) :D
Geneva (http://www.geneva.chl) :cool:
Zurich - always forget these guys as it a split portal for town & insurance - click top-right (http://www.zurich.ch/site/en.html) :p
a newspaper (http://www.baz.ch/) :eek:

[Alpha Leader]

Thanks, gofer. Yep, really changed a lot since I left.