Swiss cancels flights - tens of thousands of passengers affected

According to company spokeswoman Karin Montani, the reason for this is “bottlenecks in air traffic control in Europe, bottlenecks in ground and airport service providers worldwide and also at Swiss”. However, the proportion of canceled flights in the entire summer flight schedule is still in the low single-digit percentage range, she emphasizes.

According to Montani, the destination Nuremberg will be completely removed from the program from July to October. There are also frequency reductions on individual short routes such as Gdansk, Dresden or Warsaw. From Geneva, Swiss is also offering five fewer flights a week to London than originally planned.

But not only short-haul flights are affected: the airline also flies once a week from Zurich to San Francisco less. As a further measure against the lack of employees on the ground and in the air, Swiss is also outsourcing the flights to Vienna between July 4th and September 4th to the sister company Austrian Airlines. This is now carrying out the Swiss flights to the Austrian capital, as Montani explained.
Reason: resource bottlenecks

"The additional adjustments have become necessary as a result of ongoing resource bottlenecks in the entire airline industry," says Montani. According to the spokeswoman, the planned flight cancellations will affect around two percent of all passengers who booked a flight with Swiss in July and August.

For the first time on Tuesday morning, "Blick" reported on the upcoming flight cancellations at Swiss. The newspaper said up to 30,000 passengers could be affected. As the airline's communications department wrote on Tuesday afternoon, there were only around 10,000 people. The remaining bookings would be taken over by partner airlines.

In April, Swiss had to cancel numerous flights for the same reasons. How many exactly was not announced by the airline at the time – as it is now. But it should have been a three-digit number.
Half of those affected are Vienna passengers

However, more than half of those affected are passengers to Vienna, whose flights are now being taken over by Austrian Airlines. "Individual solutions are being sought for all other affected passengers, for example rebooking on flights within the Lufthansa Group or on flights from other Star Alliance carriers," said the spokeswoman.

Anyone affected by a flight cancellation will be notified by email. According to Montani, this email also contains travel alternatives that passengers can accept or reject. "Another option is to apply for a refund of the ticket price."

    We sincerely apologize to the passengers affected by a flight cancellation.
    Author: Oliver Buchhofer Head of Operations Swiss

Oliver Buchhofer, who is responsible for flight operations at Swiss, cites the effects of the corona pandemic and the currently very high demand as the reason for the difficulties.

"We have introduced various measures to defuse the current tense situation and to guarantee our customers the best possible flight plan stability," explains Buchhofer. According to him, this includes colleagues from the Lufthansa Group coming to the rescue of Swiss by helping out in the cabin. "We apologize in all forms to the passengers affected by a flight cancellation and are looking for individual solutions for them."