On October 9th, HB-IFA took off from Airbus Toulouse in the early afternoon and touched down at its new home base at 15:25 local time to the warmest of welcomes from numerous aviation fans. By 2031, 10 Airbus A350s are scheduled to join the SWISS fleet.
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The new addition to the SWISS fleet bears a special color scheme: its unique ‘Wanderlust’ livery, which is a striking and lively homage to Switzerland in all its finery and diversity. A large number of employees and aviation fans viewed the historic arrival of this first SWISS Airbus A350 from the airport’s observation deck.
“Today is a great day for us,” says SWISS CEO Jens Fehlinger. “With our Airbus A350, we’re transporting our customers into a new era of long-haul air travel. This aircraft represents everything we aim to be moving forward: efficient, advanced, and clearly positioned as a premium airline, from Switzerland and for Switzerland. With the A350 we’re taking a huge leap forward – technologically, ecologically, and in terms of our passengers’ inflight experience. It’s a very special thing to welcome a brand-new aircraft with a completely new cabin – something that will probably happen only once in anyone’s airline career. And it’s fascinating to see just how much progress and how much precision are embodied in this aircraft.”
“With our new SWISS Senses cabin, we’re bringing new levels of comfort and quality to the air travel world,” adds SWISS Chief Commercial Officer Heike Birlenbach. “For our guests this means more space, a more relaxing ambience, and a more individual air travel experience, from the light above the seat to the entire inflight service. Our new Airbus A350 stands for ‘premium’ as we understand it: modern, individual and hallmarked by a service that is attentive, personal and typically Swiss.”
First passenger flights from the end of this month
For the next few weeks, SWISS will initially operate its first new Airbus A350 on short flights within Europe, to enable its pilots to complete their practical training on the new twinjet as efficiently as possible. The first A350 revenue passenger flight has been scheduled from Zurich to Palma de Mallorca on 25 October.
The new aircraft’s first long-haul service will be to Boston on 20 November. This will also be the first SWISS service to operate with both the new SWISS Senses cabin and the recently introduced new long-haul inflight service. The new cabin has been devised and developed together with the Lufthansa Group, which has enabled this and the associated certifications to be effected with optimum efficiency.