Swiss bobs along through the summer in terms of punctuality

Swiss management had braced itself for the major challenges of summer flight operations, yet was once again caught off guard. «There were significantly more extraordinary events than anticipated, such as the global IT outage in mid-July and technical issues with air traffic control», said Oliver Buchhofer, Chief Operating Officer of Swiss, during a virtual media conference on Wednesday. «Additionally, numerous and sometimes severe thunderstorms severely disrupted flight operations.»

Between July 1 and August 18, every second Swiss aircraft took off at least 15 minutes late. The inglorious highlight was the Swiss national holiday of all days. Due to restrictions in European airspace and a heavy thunderstorm in Switzerland, three quarters of Swiss aircraft took off late on August 1.

A large proportion of delays are caused by third parties

This day is emblematic of the problems throughout the summer. The vast majority of delays were not caused by Swiss itself, but by external factors such as thunderstorms or bottlenecks in European air traffic control and the resulting subsequent delays. «Even on the first flights of the day, there is often insufficient capacity in European airspace. This causes delays that accumulate like a bow wave, affecting our operations throughout the day», explained Buchhofer.

Before the summer peak season, Swiss introduced over 80 measures to reduce delays. These included additional buffers in flight planning and stricter hand luggage checks to speed up boarding. Buchhofer believes that every single one of these measures was necessary. «I don't want to know where we would be in terms of punctuality if we had done nothing.»

Over the year to date, Swiss has achieved a punctuality rate (delays of less than 15 minutes) of 64 percent. This represents an increase of three percentage points compared to the previous year. However, the Swiss airline is still some way off its own target of a punctuality rate of 70 percent. Oliver Buchhofer was combative at the online media conference. According to the Chief Operating Officer, he is confident that Swiss will be able to further improve punctuality in the coming months.

High demand for customer service

Swiss Customer Service experienced a sharp increase in demand during the summer. During the vacation period, call center staff handled around 320,000 calls from customers, as they did last year. The average waiting time on the phone was less than two minutes. Written inquiries have been completed within an average of four days so far this year, while simple inquiries have been completed much earlier.

«During the summer vacations, our Customer Service department received around three times as many requests as usual», says Heike Birlenbach, Chief Commercial Officer and interim CEO of Swiss. «This is always an intense time, and I am very grateful to our employees for the way they coped with the enormous volume of work.»

When problems arise, it is important for Swiss to inform passengers quickly. «That's why we are constantly expanding the functions of the Swiss app and investing heavily in our digital offering», says Birlenbach.

According to the airline manager, refunds and rebookings can already be made in just a few minutes via the Swiss app or the Swiss website. «We are constantly working on developing these services further so that we can help our passengers even faster in the future.»