malmostoso

According to this article (in Italian), F7 is cutting 60 jobs (30 in the air and 30 on the ground).
Apparently the staff went from 210 to 320 in December 2013 (when the new routes were announced), mostly by hiring furloughed personnel from EN. Considering the current economic climate in Ticino, I guess most layoffs will be of these last Italian staff.
It would be interesting to know what kind of promises were made by EY to support such a quick expansion, only to have most routes cancelled after only a few months of operation.

nomadfre

Horrible experience with Etihad Regional GVA-ZRH. Scattered our pre-booked seats (traveling with kids 2 and 5), not helpful in putting us back together so we had to switch with passengers. Then delayed for no good reason (paperwork) and 14 us is missed our connection on Etihad ZRH to AUH. Etihad won't take responsibility because it's a separate company. Etihad Regional has no in-person rep at the airport. Ended up flying back to GVA, spent the rest of the day at the airport and took the red-eye to AUH with 2 small kids. 8 hrs turned into 18. Were also downgraded but Etihad made an exception and grudgingly offered their one remaining full fare biz seat for one of us, so my wife and I switched off. Poor form.

Etihad staff said they have problems with ER every day and that it's likely to go south by Summer '15.

RTW1

Haha... sure airlines always delay for no good reason :-).

It sucks, you booked a short connection and you paid the price. It happens when you have a connection.
But is seems they accommodated you in the end. As they should have if this was one booking... regional vs regular Etihad or not.
If it wasn't one booking be very glad they did....

RTW1

And going back to a small regional airline: http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/ne...k-to-the-roots

EFATO

Pity. Though I guess good to see EY cutting their losses if it wasn't working instead of letting debt pile up for no good reason. Hopefully they will be able to stay as controlled with Alitalia.

Took a couple of flights on the new F7 routes last year - there were some convenient connections for me but I guess I have some weird route requirements as the flights were pretty much empty

shorthauldad

I did three F7 sectors last year (STR-GVA, GVA-ZRH, ZRH-LNZ).

Closest I'll ever get to flying in a private jet

gkl

well, if you don´t mind about a couple of people in the back, my "private jet experience" was my 1/8 F-flight on ZRH-AUH last week. My personal stewardess and personal chef all the way down to AUH.

Concerto

The only flights I made were GVA-ZRH and ZRH-DUS, which were fine and quite pleasant in a way (reminiscent of the old Crossair). For the poster in post #77 above, I don't understand why Etihad did not assume responsibility for the missed connection AUH. Surely they are the same company? Or were you on separate tickets to ZRH and then to AUH?

Concerto

Just an update to say that there is an interesting new route up for sale, namely Lugano (LUG) to Sion (SIR). As I have never managed to do a take-off or landing at the regional airport of SIR in canton Valais, Switzerland, I will be on board with a bunch of VFT members on 5th June. The route operates once a week on Sundays, and is a positioning flight for F7 to operate a charter flight from SIR to PMI and back (this latter only bookable through Buchard Voyages).

https://www.etihadregional.com/en-us...no-sion-palma/

https://f7-prod.sabresonicweb.com/SS...execution=e2s1

Let me tell you that this SIR-PMI flight, if booked alone, would cost CHF790 with Buchard Voyages. It's like back in the 80s and 90s. It's a know fact that the Valaisans have plenty of money, but even they can't be so sleepy as to bite this one!

http://www.vacances-majorque.ch/inde...ge=volseul.cfm

malmostoso

It's funny, I was talking to my parents just yesterday about the state of traffic at LUG, and they were bemoaning that locals would much more welcome connections to Italy than a flight to Sion!

Thanks for explaining the reasons behind this route!

Concerto

Probably Sion is a fairly illogical connection (just a repositioning flight, as I say), but it makes for an interesting excursion for those who are interested. It's going to fly over many of those 4,000m peaks, including Dufourspitz and the Matterhorn, with hopefully excellent views. The 35 minute journey replaces a train journey that would otherwise take 4h30 to 5h30. The drive by road is pretty gruelling too. It's pretty inhospitable, glaciated terrain as the crow flies, about as bleak as it gets in Europe.

Indeed, some more flights to Italy would be useful from Lugano (Silver Air offer something to Elba, but I'm not even sure what Silver Air is).

malmostoso

I am pretty sure that both LX and F7 are making a killing on the LUG-GVA sub-100CHF fares. Cheaper than the train and less than an hour vs. more than 5 is a complete no-brainer.

I really wish LUG could be somehow adapted for A32x/B73x take-off and landing, but then the whole airport would be completely undersized. I guess the only real solution is a high-speed link to MXP, but that might never happen.