Switzerland’s regional scheduled airlines seem relatively well prepared to face a passenger slump expected to last through next year. After a frantic build-up period in the early years of the current decade, followed by a shakeout, the four majors appear entrenched in their respective markets. Analysts expect leisure traffic to take the hardest hit from the ongoing recession, but Swiss regionals have relatively high shares of business passengers as well as expatriates regularly returning to their countries of origin.
Swiss European Air Lines, a subsidiary of Swiss International Airlines and part of the Lufthansa group since 2005, stands as the market leader, with a single-type fleet of 20 Avro RJ100s. After a historic peak year last year, the Swiss parent airline has managed to further increase its revenue passenger miles in Europe by 5.8 percent during this year’s first half while available seat miles rose 4.6 percent. Swiss European does not have its own network but flies exclusively on wet-lease contracts on behalf of its parent company. Swiss split it into an independent business unit in 2005 to create a cost structure compatible with regional flying. The subsidiary has since signed new contracts with its flight and cabin crews, as well as with ground staff.
