SWISS plans more flight cancellations into autumn
Additional cancellations of SWISS flights are “unavoidable” because of staff shortages, a company spokesperson told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Sunday.
Scheduled flights between August and October would be affected by the latest announcement, which was originally reported by the news portal blick.ch. It follows news earlier in June that 2% of 18,500 SWISS flights planned for July and August would be cancelled.
“Further cancellations are unfortunately unavoidable in the coming months due to resource constraints and operational challenges across the airline industry,” said the spokesperson. The cancellations, however, would remain in the single-digit percentage range of the overall offer.
It is still unclear which routes would be affected. But the company intends to inform passengers as soon as details are worked out and offer them automatic re-bookings or other individualised solutions, the spokesperson added.
The plan to cut more flights comes as the entire aviation industry experiences shortages and bottlenecks in passenger screening, air control and flight attendant numbers. In 2021 SWISS decided to lay off 780 staff because of the Covid-19 pandemic but had to review the figure down to 550.
Lufthansa, its German parent company, does not expect operations to return to normal until 2023.
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