B777-300ERs to replace the A340 [rumour confirmed]
 

Swiss cube inventor and editor-in-chief of Monocle magazine Tyler Brûlé just posted in his "fast track" column of the ft this:

"...late-night Swiss departure to Bangkok... on board the A340 I chat to the captain, who tells me ... there’s a shortage of first officers and that he’s hoping his A340 will soon be replaced by 777-300ERs."

Anyway: not to be taken too seriously and highly unlikely...
Probably more wish thinking of some former MD-11 LX pilots than anything else... ?!?

link to the article: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/abcc0...#axzz26oPLPb9I

I don't know how that man created the swiss cube, he is certainly lacking in various other fronts... FTers love to joke about him, the are a few threads, I clearly remember this one: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/sas-e...-radisson.html

Evidently he had a few Aperol Spritz too many in ZRH and missed the A330 reference to only remember it as a triple 7 ;) What also puzzles me is that he evidently booked economy to Brisbane... on QF. The poor man...

Well he did event the cube which was iconic. A pity LX got rid of it.

He did also come up with the concept of using brown on board LX, which has survived.

Have to admit though that the guy does seem capable of doing very stupid things.

And the 77W at LX is a pipedream.

I believe LX will opt the A350 for its future replacement of the A340 fleet.

They have a few scenarios out there, some are about taking over some A346 from LH and expanding next summer, some about buying the new A330X with a longer range, some about A350 purchases. LX shouldn't get too excited about their current good fortune and rather stick to a solid medium sized operation... expanding like crazy may not be a great idea if you look at the SR history :)

A pipedream not for everybody
 

not for everybody.

I prefer an European product anytime and Airbus are fantastic planes and not flying fossils. Fly by wire ;).

What took down SR was the various companies on the side, notably Sabena and AOM.

LX in fact needs to expand however they seem to continually be unable to find additional crew to meet these needs. I'm not sure whether this is due to unfavorable conditions or language requirements (for example requirement to speak German & English and for flight deck crew to learn French if not spoken when hired).

I don't think language is a great barrier to recruiting. I know that most pilots and FAs of AC are not bilingual despite AC policy of providing bilingual service to all their customers.

Well on Swiss it is, especially my "collegues romands" can get pretty upset if they can not converse with the FA's in fluent French.

Well on AC we Europeans are stuggling anyway to understand when they speak Canadien French or Canadian English:)

Don't know how we came to this but it's an interesting conversation and long overdue regarding LX: the French language skills of their FA!

It seems to me, LX doesn't really care anymore about their FA having French skills. Or is it just me?
How can it be that even SBB manages to recruit people with at least some French skills, while at LX you can assist at the ever further decline of language skills limited to German (not even Swiss German in some cases) and bad English... French on non-GVA legs? Long gone.

On my last ZRH-YUL flight the cabin crew were almost totally francophone as their first language from what I could tell.

Also I had the same experience many times on the GVA-JFK-GVA flights.

"B777-300ERs to replace the A340 (not to be taken seriously...)"
actually more serious than I initially thought...

According to the Swiss Newspaper "Der Sonntag" - Swiss CEO Hohmeister is indeed investigating the B777 and even calls it his favorite option to replace the A340. A decision should be made within the next 6 to 12 months. Hohmeister is said to be looking for a plane with an additional 50 seats.

This article further reports about LH trying to give LX some of their A340-6. Yet Hohmeister is against this option, the seat costs being too high in his opinion. The A350 is certainly an option yet Hohmeister wants a replacement sooner than the A350 would be available.

http://www.sonntagonline.ch/ressort/wirtschaft/2603/

HH must remember that he probably will not earn enough to afford an expensive 77W if you compare the cost to a used 346 which LH bought pretty cheap post 9/11 and with some A380 delay discounts thrown in. My bet is still on some more A330-300X.

I much prefer the 777 as an airplane to the A340/A330- I have my doubts it will come to LX but it would be great if it did!