This winter season Air Serbia will be increasing BEG-ZRH from 14 to 17. Departures at 07.20, 12.40 and 18.30.

easyJet launched today its three weekly BSL-BEG in addition to already flying three weekly GVA-BEG.

Yasser Arafat's jet, a Lockheed L-1329 JetStar II, register HB-JGK, that has been parked in LSGG for ages has been scrapped:

https://www.tdg.ch/geneve/actu-genevois ... y/28354814

GVA airport statistics show for the first time in years a month with negative passenger growth in JUL: - 0.7%. Looking at the previous months in 2018, growth has been very week every month and cumulates at +1.5% at the end of JUL. The same can be said about movements which shows YTD fihures at -2.3%, although a bit less noise in the airport neighbourhood is probably welcome. Do any of the GVA insiders have an explanation for this slow passenger decline and which airline has reduced frequencies ?

For a start, limited supply extension due to capacity constraints as modernisation work continues in the terminal. It will continue in W18 although there may be some relief at some point.
https://www.slotcoordination.ch/documen ... s_SCCG.pdf

"Capacity restrictions
Measures introduced as from W17/18: The terminal departure capacity has been reduced from 3000 PAX/h to 2000 PAX/h.
Measures introduced as from S18: Reduced runway capacity: 21:00-21:55 lt to max 15 departures."

For example Easy Jet capacity is down this year on average:
Q1: -1%
Q2 : -2%
Q3 : 0%

Then lots of cancellation due to strikes and bad weather, affecting potentially 40k PAX.

And last, a political landscape (new concession PSIA, potential referendum) which incentivise airport / main airlines (EZY) not to push aggressively to supply growth.

pmartin wrote:

For a start, limited supply extension due to capacity constraints as modernisation work continues in the terminal. It will continue in W18 although there may be some relief at some point.
https://www.slotcoordination.ch/documen ... s_SCCG.pdf

"Capacity restrictions
Measures introduced as from W17/18: The terminal departure capacity has been reduced from 3000 PAX/h to 2000 PAX/h.
Measures introduced as from S18: Reduced runway capacity: 21:00-21:55 lt to max 15 departures."

For example Easy Jet capacity is down this year on average:
Q1: -1%
Q2 : -2%
Q3 : 0%

Then lots of cancellation due to strikes and bad weather, affecting potentially 40k PAX.

And last, a political landscape (new concession PSIA, potential referendum) which incentivise airport / main airlines (EZY) not to push aggressively to supply growth.

Thanks, I wan't aware of the terminal capacity restrictions, but I guess this will go on for while, so growth will be on hold for years to come. At this rate, 25 Mio pax by 2030 will be hard to reach which should pacify our environmentalists. Still, the negative growth figure in JUL came as a surprise, we haven't been used to this over the last 20 years.

Meanwhile ZRH just passed the 3 million passenger mark in a month for the first time ever.

ZRH 07/2018
3'129’964 +4.9%

However, same as is the case now in GVA, this growth will soon come to an end due to infrastructure and political constraints.

For instance, the new high speed taxiways on runway 28 that are in construction now were supposed to allow for an increased capacity in the evening hours. Just last week the FOAC announced that it would cap the number of late night slots at todays level due to the increasing number of people being affected by noise of landing aircraft. That comes at a time when LX just put in service an entire fleet of the quietest jet there is - go figure!

In other news, Swiss CEO Klühr stated in a recent interview that with the arrival of the two additional 777 LX will inaugurate a new long haul service. According to him IAD and ICN are high on their priority list. Klühr also mentioned that LX has finally managed to cut down on the losses in GVA as they are now just about breaking even with their operations there.

As for route news - some recent announcements below:

easyJet (all starting in winter 18/19)
BSL-WAW (3/7)
BSL-TXL (19/7)
BSL-SPC (2/7)
GVA-RNS (3/7)
GVA-WAW (4/7)
Meanwhile GVA-MUC is being axed.

Edelweiss
ZRH-OVD (1/7 in W18)
ZRH-SPC (1/7 in W18)
ZRH-TIA (2/7 in S19)
ZRH-EVL (1/7 in S19)

Wizzair
BSL-PRN (3/7)
On the other hand BSL-WAW/SOF/WRO all get cut at the end of October. Remains to be seen if they come back.

Thanks for your update. MUC axing explains where EZS gets the aircraft to operate to WAW and RNS. I must confess who I'm wondering who wants to travel between RNS and GVA in Winter.

I don't see SOF-BSL being brought back, they can serve the market from nearby INI.

Hello all! Can I ask if anyone here who may work at ZRH or LX could find out the following for me:

LX 406 (ZRH-DUB) was cancelled last Saturday August 4th at the very last minute (text messages/emails sent about 30 minutes after the programmed departure time). An extra flight was put on the following morning by LX for the passengers.

I contacted Swiss Customer Care, and the particular person I've been dealing with has not been very helpful, and actually quite rude. My wife was trying to find out if eligible for EU compensation for cancellation/delayed arrival. The first email came back quite quickly, was long and polite saying no compensation due as flight cancellation was due to "unfavorable weather conditions" and "traffic control restrictions" without providing further information. We replied asking for further information/details on their excuse as we quickly checked departures from ZRH during the same 2 hour period LX406 should have departed, and no other flights were cancelled nor were there any major delays. We also checked arrivals at DUB for the expected arrival time of LX406 and things were even better there with a very high number of early or on-time arrivals and a few not serious delayed arrivals with the exception of an SK flight that was also cancelled. She basically wrote back that Swiss always pays compensation and that as far es they are concerned the case if closed and they will give no more response to our emails! This I found quite rude. She (I don't want to say "they" as I don't want to bundle all of LX into one customer care person's response) refuses to give us any further explanations and basically says "forget it, we're not answering you any more) after only 2 emails from us!

If there were true adverse weather conditions etc I will happily accept this! It's just I really get the feeling the flight was cancelled to suit LX (the incoming aircraft programmed to operate DUB got severely delayed leaving AMS, arriving nearly 3 hours late into ZRH and then shortly after when the DUB flight should have left, it was switched flighted and operated the subsequent evening TXL flight).

Any info greatly appreciated!

Thanks and have a great day from the Alpes Vaudoises!

Toulouse know nothing about that particular flight but gave you not answered yourself by noting the severe delay on the incoming flight? If AMS was delayed then you might not receive anything?!!

Toulouse - I wish you good luck as even if you have a valid claim Swiss will basically never pay EC261 compensation unless dragged to courts.

eirflot wrote:

Toulouse know nothing about that particular flight but gave you not answered yourself by noting the severe delay on the incoming flight? If AMS was delayed then you might not receive anything?!!

A good point. I have read on the internet that the EC261 rule applies to your actual flight and delays on other flights (such as is the case here) are not applicable as the rule only covers the flight in question... of course I don't know how reliable this info is!

runway23 wrote:

Toulouse - I wish you good luck as even if you have a valid claim Swiss will basically never pay EC261 compensation unless dragged to courts.

Thanks Runway23! It's disappointing to see how Swiss customer care has fallen. I've always been a huge fan of Swiss (and previous Swissair and Crossair)... and despite GVA being my local airport and I always try to fly Swiss, I can see why so many locals no longer see a difference between EZY and LX.

This has become more a question of principle. The response from Swiss has been very dismissive, poor and to be honest verging on rude. I'm not sure I see the point in going to court with all associated stress and expenses... Perhaps I'll use one of those online sites for EC261 claims as I don't think I have anything to loose with them even though if successful I'll get less compensation???

It's really a pity to see Swiss coming to this...

Some good news for Lugano Airport !

Skywork Airlines will operate the route GVA-LUG on weekdays starting Oct 29. The timetable is :

SX010 LUG-GVA 07:00-07:45 12345--
SX014 LUG-GVA 18:05-19:00 12345-- (7 from 31 March 2019)

SX011 GVA-LUG 08:15-09:10 12345--
SX015 GVA-LUG 19:30-20:25 12345-- (7 form 31 March 2019)

From Lugano, they will also offer Elba and Olba from 31 March 2019 :

SX2402 LUG-OLB 09:30-11:05 -----6-
SX2403 OLB-LUG 16:00-17:30 -----6-

SX2416 LUG-EBA 07:15-08:30 -----6-
SX2417 EBA-LUG 13:30-14:45 -----6-

Gaetan wrote:

Some good news for Lugano Airport !

Skywork Airlines will operate the route GVA-LUG on weekdays starting Oct 29. The timetable is :

SX010 LUG-GVA 07:00-07:45 12345--
SX014 LUG-GVA 18:05-19:00 12345-- (7 from 31 March 2019)

SX011 GVA-LUG 08:15-09:10 12345--
SX015 GVA-LUG 19:30-20:25 12345-- (7 form 31 March 2019)

From Lugano, they will also offer Elba and Olba from 31 March 2019 :

SX2402 LUG-OLB 09:30-11:05 -----6-
SX2403 OLB-LUG 16:00-17:30 -----6-

SX2416 LUG-EBA 07:15-08:30 -----6-
SX2417 EBA-LUG 13:30-14:45 -----6-

GVA-LUG 192CHF one way! Not very cheap for such a short flight...

In an interview in the French edition of the Travel Inside issue on 07.06.2018, the Commercial Director of Geneva Airport said he was looking for 3-4 new l/haul routes. Unfortunately, I have no access to the full article, as I don't want to pay an annual subscription to read 1 or 2 articles a year I would be interested in. Did anybody read this interview and what were the routes and carriers GVA airport is targeting ? I know, we have often speculated on this before, but it might be interesting what the airport management is actually working on.

The airport management is targeting flights to Japan, India, Brazil, US Pacific coast and South East Asia. Quite in line with other recent articles mentioning Japan, Shanghai, HK, Singapore.
The Head of Marketing also says that Air China is doing better and the the flight seems safe in the long-term. However, it would need 5 weekly flights in order to attract business travelers.

Ok, so nothing new under the sun. As for Air China, would they be allowed to increase PEK/GVA without cutting back ZRH, assuming they'll definitely operate their 4 flights from ZRH ? I would have thought both CA and LX would be restricted to 7 weekly flight each between Switzerland and PEK.

SkyWork went out of business yesterday evening.

There's already another thread talking about it: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1402731

Patrick.

phofmannsair wrote:

SkyWork went out of business yesterday evening.

There's already another thread talking about it: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1402731

Patrick.

Saw it in the press this morning. While is was known they had financial difficulties, is seems strange they opened GVA-LUG flights for bookings 5 days ago, just to go bust last night. They must have known at the time that is was touch and go and opening sales for tickets GVA-LUG under these circumstances was downright irresponsible, and that's putting it mildly ! If they sold tickets during these 5 days, these passengers obviously have lost their money.

Increadibly, in a few days, it will be (already) twenty years since SR111 occured and rocked Switzerland and Swissair with an unimaginable drama.

[/quote]
Saw it in the press this morning. While is was known they had financial difficulties, is seems strange they opened GVA-LUG flights for bookings 5 days ago, just to go bust last night. They must have known at the time that is was touch and go and opening sales for tickets GVA-LUG under these circumstances was downright irresponsible, and that's putting it mildly ! If they sold tickets during these 5 days, these passengers obviously have lost their money.[/quote]

Exactly what I thought and talk with a colleague of mine this morning. Their situation was known before they began to sell GVA-LUG tickets.

phofmannsair wrote:

Saw it in the press this morning. While is was known they had financial difficulties, is seems strange they opened GVA-LUG flights for bookings 5 days ago, just to go bust last night. They must have known at the time that is was touch and go and opening sales for tickets GVA-LUG under these circumstances was downright irresponsible, and that's putting it mildly ! If they sold tickets during these 5 days, these passengers obviously have lost their money.[/quote]

Exactly what I thought and talk with a colleague of mine this morning. Their situation was known before they began to sell GVA-LUG tickets.[/quote]
So, definitely no more GVA -LUG or could there be anyone willing to fill the gap ?

hynithuchi wrote:

So, definitely no more GVA -LUG or could there be anyone willing to fill the gap ?

Probably not. I can't think of any airline that could/would operate that route now. Most of the airlines that still have Saabs are in the UK now, and there's no other airline operates aircraft small enough to support the route.

With Skywork out of business now, could we see Helvetic adding more routes our of BRN and re-open the GVA-LUG or is there definitely no market?

Nobody has ever made any money out of BRN, and that goes back as far as the defunct Swissair. I don't think Helvetic will be tempted to enter the BRN market seriously except for a few niche flights during the Summer seasons, same as they seem to be doing already. As for GVA-LUG, I wondered before about that, but their E-190 are simply too for the existing O/D market and nobody nor myself can see another airline willing to take on this challenge with a suitably sized aircraft. Maybe the city of Lugano will start up a carrier as the their authorities have previously suggested or someone with plenty of money ( to lose ?) might copy the FlyBaboo and Darwin projects.

SR380 wrote:

With Skywork out of business now, could we see Helvetic adding more routes our of BRN and re-open the GVA-LUG or is there definitely no market?

Maybe Fly LaNova...if they suceed. Time will tell!

phofmannsair wrote:

SR380 wrote:

With Skywork out of business now, could we see Helvetic adding more routes our of BRN and re-open the GVA-LUG or is there definitely no market?

Maybe Fly LaNova...if they suceed. Time will tell!

If they stick to their new business concept, they would be too expensive, even for business travellers and in particular for tourists like me. AZ now offers return fares to LIN as from CHF 165.- and from Milano to Lugano by train, it takes 30 minutes, by car probably even less. Can't see Fly LaNova taking over, they'll operate in a different market segment, if they'll operate at all.

hynithuchi wrote:

If they stick to their new business concept, they would be too expensive, even for business travellers and in particular for tourists like me. AZ now offers return fares to LIN as from CHF 165.- and from Milano to Lugano by train, it takes 30 minutes, by car probably even less. Can't see Fly LaNova taking over, they'll operate in a different market segment, if they'll operate at all.

Lugano to Linate is about 95 km by road with no train. That is +1 hour in an extremely congested road system.

Lugano is closer to Malpensa but it is still about 75 km. There is also no direct train of any kind. The only common transportation available are private shuttles that go from Lugano to MXP.

http://malpensa-express.com

You're right, I found the fastest train service between the 2 cities is 1h13, which seems excessive for 95 km of rail nowadays. Still, in my opinion, using LIN to fly from LUG to GVA is still the best solution pending the absence of scheduled flights, and it looks as if this may last a while. The train and road journeys are simply too long to be competitve, although I've done it a few times.

Hi,
SkyWork had opened ticket sales for BRE - VIE flights. A couple of guys from my company purchased flights because this saves us a lot of time. Actually, going to HAM is a mess traffic wise and this direct flight was a nice thing. Plus, the Saab 2000 looked great.
We now have some hundreds of euros to be refunded - or not.

PhilInBRN wrote:

Wizzair
BSL-PRN (3/7)
On the other hand BSL-WAW/SOF/WRO all get cut at the end of October. Remains to be seen if they come back.

Basel-Sofia restarts in April with 2 weekly A321.

New flights have started to Sibiu and Debrecen as well as Pristina will follow later this year. I doubt Warsaw will return since easyJet announced 3 weekly flights on that route. Wizzair is already the second largest airline in Basel and they want to double its presence in the next 2 years. I would guess Sarajevo or Tirana to be next.

At the same time I wonder when easyJet will start flights from Basel to Macedonia. Wizzair has a daily flight to Skopje and up to 5 weekly to Ohrid.

As per Airline Route today, EK has scheduled it's last B-777-300 flight on 27 OCT. Both flights to GVA are operated by B777-300ER, so I'm wondering what other aircraft will they be using on the route. Unless of course, this announcement doesn't concern the ERs, then GVA would service would not be affected. Anybody knows if they plan an equipment change?

The long awaited GVA - LIN link inaugurated by AZ.
Double daily. I think that that service will be very successful.

hynithuchi wrote:

As per Airline Route today, EK has scheduled it's last B-777-300 flight on 27 OCT. Both flights to GVA are operated by B777-300ER, so I'm wondering what other aircraft will they be using on the route. Unless of course, this announcement doesn't concern the ERs, then GVA would service would not be affected. Anybody knows if they plan an equipment change?

It conerns only the non-ER models.

TAP opens Lisbon-Basel twice daily with A-319 effective summer schedule 2019.

Departures from BSL TP953 at 11:05 and TP957 at 20:15.

This is excellent news since the flights allow connections to the US, South America and Africa.

Good evening!

Tonight marks the "end" of Runway 05/23!
As of tomorrow 06:00AM LT, the new Runway designators will be 04/22. It will take 3 entire nights to change all the panels/signs.



Patrick.

phofmannsair wrote:

Good evening!

Tonight marks the "end" of Runway 05/23!
As of tomorrow 06:00AM LT, the new Runway designators will be 04/22. It will take 3 entire nights to change all the panels/signs.



Patrick.

Good to know. Has it always been 05/23?

Yes, always been 05/23!

https://www.azal.az/en/article/436
AZAL from Geneva to Baku, 2x per week (Tuesday, Friday), A319 starting 30th Oct.

As a reminder, Geneva is the home of Socar Trading, the trading and marketing hub of Socar, the Azeri national oil company.

pmartin wrote:

https://www.azal.az/en/article/436
AZAL from Geneva to Baku, 2x per week (Tuesday, Friday), A319 starting 30th Oct.

As a reminder, Geneva is the home of Socar Trading, the trading and marketing hub of Socar, the Azeri national oil company.

I recall GYD-GVA was served for a while with a business jet style plane.

http://swtravel.az/en/news/company-news ... -jets.html

https://www.gva.ch/fr/desktopdefault.as ... ead-13808/

Yes, they did operate 3 or 4 flights with Silkway Aviation Boeing 727-200 before switching to the A320/A319 at some point.

Nice to see them back again and I hope they'll last a bit longer than the last time, although I'm unlikely to ever fly to GYD. Anybody knows what has changed since their last ops to make them change their mind again ? If I remember right, Socar was already in Geneva when they stopped their shortlive ops, so there must be other reasons.

A quick question. I noticed that the are no more direct flights from GVA to LJU.shown on the airport's information board nor on the JP website JP stared them in APR only, are they gone already ?

Hop will launch Geneva - Caen from late november :

AF 6150 CFE 1025 - 1140 GVA 1-3-5-7 E70
AF 6151 GVA 1215 - 1335 CFR 1-3-5-7 E70

https://twitter.com/CCICaen/status/1043 ... 90816?s=19

The quite small Caen airport is growing fast since last year with several new routes :

MAR 17 TLS Volotea
AVR 17 FSC Volotea
AVR 17 FSC HOP
AVR 18 MRS Volotea
NOV 17 NTE Chalair
DEC 17 TLS HOP

hynithuchi wrote:

A quick question. I noticed that the are no more direct flights from GVA to LJU.shown on the airport's information board nor on the JP website JP stared them in APR only, are they gone already ?

Adria suspended these flights on 13.09. Loads were abysmal.

Please allow me to jump in real quick with a selfish request: I'll be vacationing in Switzerland for the first time from October 1st to October 15th. What are some aviation-enthusiast must-sees in the country? I am planning to go to Axalp October 10th. Thank you for any advice and tips!

whpbur wrote:

Please allow me to jump in real quick with a selfish request: I'll be vacationing in Switzerland for the first time from October 1st to October 15th. What are some aviation-enthusiast must-sees in the country? I am planning to go to Axalp October 10th. Thank you for any advice and tips!

Axalp is definitely a must see at that period. In addition, you could spend time at ZRH and maybe GVA. Both airports have a significant amount of private planes movements. Payerne airbase is also interesting, you can admire F/A 18 very closely.

Wishing you a pleasant trip in Switzerland!

whpbur wrote:

Please allow me to jump in real quick with a selfish request: I'll be vacationing in Switzerland for the first time from October 1st to October 15th. What are some aviation-enthusiast must-sees in the country? I am planning to go to Axalp October 10th. Thank you for any advice and tips!

Perhaps not a must see, but if you have some time, some money and you are around, you may be interested to see this:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@47.052478,8 ... 312!8i6656

Blerg wrote:

hynithuchi wrote:

A quick question. I noticed that the are no more direct flights from GVA to LJU.shown on the airport's information board nor on the JP website JP stared them in APR only, are they gone already ?

Adria suspended these flights on 13.09. Loads were abysmal.

Thanks for your info, but I frankly can't understand why they couldn't make this work,considering they didn't exactly offer excessive capacity.

hynithuchi wrote:

Blerg wrote:

hynithuchi wrote:

A quick question. I noticed that the are no more direct flights from GVA to LJU.shown on the airport's information board nor on the JP website JP stared them in APR only, are they gone already ?

Adria suspended these flights on 13.09. Loads were abysmal.

Thanks for your info, but I frankly can't understand why they couldn't make this work,considering they didn't exactly offer excessive capacity.

Adria tends to be extremely expensive while offering a rather mediocre product. Seems like they are struggling with a few other destinations, HAM being one of them. I think most of their customers are either from ZRH or are using the airport for connections. Even nearby ZAG which is much larger doesn't have a GVA link.