SWISS has reported mixed results from its flight operations for the 2024 summer holiday period. Various actions taken in advance of this year’s peak travel season helped raise the airline’s year-to-date punctuality to 64 per cent – an improvement on the same period in 2023 that was achieved despite its transporting some 8 per cent more passengers this summer between the beginning of July and the middle of August. At the same time, more SWISS travellers were affected by irregularities this year during the peak summer period. Most of these were attributable to exogenous factors such as thunderstorms, bottlenecks in Europe’s air traffic control system and associated knock-on delays.

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) prepared itself thoroughly for this summer’s peak travel months. Over 80 actions had been taken in advance to help keep the airline’s flight operations as smooth as possible during the 2024 holiday season. As at 18 August, some 64 per cent of SWISS aircraft had departed on time in 2024 – an improvement of more than three percentage points on the 61 per cent of the same period last year. In the summer holiday season (between the beginning of July and the middle of August) SWISS transported over 2.8 million travellers – some 8 per cent more than in the same period in 2023. The company performed 20,797 flights during this time, around 6 per cent more than it had in the prior-year period (2023: 19,610 flights).

More flights, more passengers and more baggage

The record day this summer was 14 July, the day the school summer holidays began in Canton Zurich and elsewhere, when a total of 63,453 travellers were carried. More passengers means more baggage: SWISS transported over two million bags in its aircraft’s cargo holds between the beginning of July and mid-August – some 8 per cent more than it had in the same period last year.

“The summer season faced the entire air transport sector – including our Zurich Airport hub – with challenges that were both exceptional and in many cases unexpected,” says Heike Birlenbach, SWISS Chief Commercial Officer and Interim CEO. “The many thunderstorms we experienced along with shortages of air traffic control resources and the resulting knock-on delays had a sizeable adverse impact on our operations. And exogenous factors of this kind accounted for some 75 per cent of all our summer flight delays. So as the last few weeks have shown, the global air transport system is not as robust as we would all want it to be.”

Capacity shortages in air traffic control

“Our entire SWISS team did an amazing job this summer,” adds SWISS Chief Operating Officer Oliver Buchhofer. “And thanks to all this commitment, and our preparations together with our partners, we actually improved our punctuality for the period – despite the demanding conditions and despite carrying higher numbers of passengers.” The challenges were substantial, as Buchhofer explains. “The capacity shortages in European airspace were felt as early as our first morning flights. And this causes delays whose repercussions ripple throughout the rest of the day.”

So how does Buchhofer view SWISS’s summer flight operations overall? “Our target of 70 per cent punctuality for 2024 as a whole remains as yet unachieved,” he concedes. “But the actions we have taken are having their effects. Our ground operations in particular were better this summer. So we’re optimistic that we can further raise our punctuality in the months ahead.”

Customer services in high demand

The increased passenger volumes, combined with unexpected developments such as the external IT failures and the frequent thunderstorm conditions, prompted significant increases in the use that travellers made of SWISS’s customer service facilities. The company’s call centre staff handled some 320,000 customer calls over the summer holiday period, a volume that was broadly in line with last year’s levels. Waiting times for callers averaged less than two minutes. And written customer inquiries were resolved within an average of four days, with simpler issues concluded substantially sooner.

“Our customer services handled about three times their usual inquiry volumes over the summer holiday weeks,” Heike Birlenbach observes. “It’s always an intensive time. And I am truly grateful to all our people who met and mastered these huge work volumes. Whenever an irregularity occurs, we strive to inform the customers concerned as soon as we possibly can. Which is why we continue to expand the functions of our SWISS app and to invest so substantially in our digital service product. Refunds and rebookings can already be made in minutes, via the SWISS app or on our SWISS website. And we’re constantly working to further refine these services and facilities, to offer our customers even swifter assistance whenever they may need it.”