Concerto

Anyone had any experiences with SkyWork Airlines? I made a booking with them, CHF79 all inclusive from Rome (FCO) to Berne (BRN), which is an amazingly good price. It seems that they offer you an iPad to play with in flight. Meals seems to be free, from their menu, while drinks, oddly, are payable. Or have I missed something?

www.flyskywork.com

Avnu

I'm flying with them in September on their LCY to BRN flights, paying 79 CHF one way as well. Which is an even better deal considering the hefty charges at London City. When are you flying?

From what I've seen and heard you can indeed request an iPad filled with games and movies. I get the same impression about the meals, as it specifically states 'SkyBistro includes a glass of water'. So I guess all other drinks are to be paid for.

Gigantor

I have flown with Skywork on several occasions...

Excellent service, excellent airline.

Concerto

I am looking forward to trying them!

I will be doing the Rome-Berne on 14th June, which I see has now gone up to CHF179 minimum! I will report back as to how the trip was.

GBM.flights

I flew Skywork beg of May. Very decent airline. With the huge added value of BRN. I hope they do well and soon join some FFP.
Curiously enough for this thread the photo I took onboard was the Ipad and a glass of water

They handed out the Ipad after take-off. Didn't really see how many they had but I don't think enough for every pax.
The meal is served together with water to all pax and after that the FA comes round with another cart serving soft drinks, alcohol (including spirits), coffee and tea which are all paid for.

There is a trip report on Skywork in the trip reports with plenty of pics.

GBM

Concerto

It would appear that SkyWork now offers connecting flights. For example, I noticed that Rijeka (in Croatia) could be reached from Cologne-Bonn via Berne for as little as EUR90 OW, incl tax.

My own experience on SkyWork (FCO-BRN) was outstanding. The flight was so memorable and the service so great (with a nice meal), that I awarded it 10 out 10 points! This is how flying used to be!

GBM.flights

It's on their website news. They now offer 16 connecting flights.

The connecting flights in the 2012 summer flight schedule
Thessaloniki – London City
Thessaloniki – Hamburg
Thessaloniki – Cologne
Thessaloniki – Berlin-Schönefeld
Split – London City
Split – Hamburg
Split – Cologne
Split – Berlin-Schönefeld
Rijeka – London City
Rijeka – Hamburg
Rijeka – Cologne
Rijeka – Berlin-Schönefeld

Belgrade – London City
Belgrade – Hamburg
Belgrade – Cologne
Belgrade – Berlin-Schönefeld

GBM

TallestHotelInJapan

Thanks for the nice report. That makes me trying them. Any advice for cheap flights with them? Which dates and which destinations?

Concerto

You just need to surf around a bit on their site, which is a reasonably pleasant experience. I managed to get CHF79 (EUR69) flights around 3-4 weeks out, depending on the route, school holidays etc. Remember, there's another 5 francs or so credit charge surcharge, and the prices quoted are for one ways only.

GBM.flights

Skywork planned S13 operation is out.
The english press release, as I write this, is not available on their website, but airlineroute does a beautiful job as usual:

New destinations:
Brindisi, Djerba, Heraklion, Malta, Mykonos, Naples, Thira*, Tunis, Zadar and Zakynthos.


* had to look this one up. It's Santorini (JTR).
GBM

jimyvr

SkyWork this summer is introducing "connection" services on selected markets only to test the market reaction.

GBM.flights

I flew Skywork again this week. This time I got the Dash-8. Fairly full both flights, it seems they are doing well.
Still impressed by the overall experience.

They just need an FFP .


GBM

Avnu

Agree, I had two very pleasant flights with them on the LCY-BRN route earlier this month. Friendly crew, spiffy looking planes and a very nice Bircher Müsli for breakfast

Handing out iPads for IFE is a very simple idea that works very well.

Looking forward to having them around for the future *with* a decent FFP indeed

PaulRO

The cuts announced this/last week by Skywork Airlines www.flyskywork.com/en(based at Berne's Belp airport, BRN) have been the subject of a frontpage piece, and a business section lead story, in the highly respectable 'Der Bund' newspaper, the staid and reliable daily of the Swiss capital.
The article in the 7 February issue is at:
http://www.derbund.ch/bern/stadt/Sky...story/28525863

I have found that the DE-EN translation offered by Google, a digital marketeer, provides a reasonable overview. What follows here is solely my take on the article and other developments. It is not, in any way, except for obvious translated quotes, attributable to the article itself, which I leave you to examine yourself.

The cuts include dropping some Balkan routes (the rookie new owner is from the region), and shrinking service on others. The 'there-and-back-in-a-day' services to Vienna have been shrunk to one daily. The third daily return to London, a lunchtime special, is being removed from some (all?) of its schedules, from a point in February onwards.

Perhaps nothing new there, as a relative upstart seeks to adjust to soaring oil prices, tempting offers from competitors from more estabished Swiss airports and growing pains. The airline more than doubled its traffic over 2011-2012, and brought new life to the absolutely charming, sweetly tiny and largely moribund airport of Bern. The once thrice-daily Munich connection gradually withered and died when LH subsidiary(?) Cirrus went belly-up, and the twice-daily Orly link by AirFrance's Airlinair, started in 2009, ceases operation end-March.

With a quasi-hegemony on scheduled flights, and much of the scant charter traffic through Belp, perhaps apparent success went to the (changing) head of Skywork. The way he rattled his bars a few months ago at a proposed change in airport fees, with an ugly threat to shift the Skywork base to Basle (lock, stock and Basel...), must have given his backers and bankers a wobbly feeling. It was not rich in any of the subtleties of the Swiss way of doing business.

And now, are we seeing a script unfold of a stalling airline that tried to grow in an inorganic way? It's more than a matter of conjecture.
The article in Bund suggests that this is more than just the "adjustment" of which one quoted source speaks. The author of the article says that the cutbacks, and associated talk of additional charges to published and advertised fares, look like more than the trim-and-slim nature of the cuts. First, he implies, they hit the customer in the "wallet". Then, they reduce the appeal of the Skywork "offering". And, now, it seems, they actually raise doubts of the "reliability" of the airline.

In Switzerland, it's reliability that makes the difference. Reliability is part of the nation's geneset. So much so that it is a given, unspoken in its security. (Remember a nation weeping when Swissair grew lopsided and flopped?).
To question reliability is the next surest thing to starting a run of confidence-loss in a product.
For one of the nation's most staid voice-pieces to do so, well ...

To be clear, I am simply a disinterested observer, no more. The Skywork package has its attractions to me for several European routes, but they never yet got me onboard. I use Belp for LH(as was) and AF, and just love the dinky airport, the multi-tasking and aimiable staff, the 30 metres from check-in to plane, the always-empty-and-thus-private lounge... Written a few km north-west of BRN.

GBM.flights

These route cuts will have a fleet impact according to ch-aviation :
Taking the fleet details of skywork of Dornier with 31 seats and Dash with 72 seats, this means 25% less planes but almost 39% less seat capacity.

Not good signs...
GBM