GBM.flights

per airline route. details on the new KIX/IAD routes

Nick Art

Vixit

San Gottardo

oliver2002

LX is part of the J++ cartel that LH did with NH a few years ago. So bilaterals shouldn't be an issue.

https://www.lufthansagroup.com/en/co...-ventures.html

MichielR

San Gottardo

We should also consider Zurich – Geneva – Douala – Brazzaville – Douala – Zurich.

And make sure LX re-opens Basel-Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden (flown by Crossair) and Zurich-Friedrichshafen (also from the Crossair days).

For some more route suggestions: https://airlineroutes.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/sr-s72/ and https://airlineroutes.wordpress.com/.../28/sr-94intl/

Seriously: sure, there are blank spots on the map. We all can think of some and some of us have our "pet" destinations. But then I must say that for a "small" airline like LX from a small country like Switzerland their intercontinental network isn't half bad, and the fact that it's typically daily nonstop services instead of 2 times a week with 5 stops in the bush is also preferable. I am happy to fly non-stop every day to BKK on an LX 77W and then connect to MNL, rather than flying Tuesdays only with stops in Athens, Karachi, Mumbai and Bankgok. Longer travel time, shorter legs, no thanks. With the exception of KLM I cannot think of another airline from a country that small that has such an impressive intercontinental network (city states like HKG and SIN excepted, but even with them it would be worthwhile checking whether they serve all continents with so many flights).

We all miss Swissair, but I don't think we are that badly served by LX. And those glorious things that we miss from the SR days, who knows if they'd survived until 2019 even if the company had continued to exist.

EDIT: of course there are small country airlines with an impressive network. Qatar, Emirates, Etihad... Oh well.

San Gottardo

Destinations beyond 5 hour flying time form hub, including subsidiaries (EDW, Scoot, Dragon):

Swiss: 23 LX and 21 WK
Singapore Airlines: 29 SQ and 10 TR
Cathay Pacific: 35 CX and

bawm

You can find it, even in August 2019! For example, on arrival in Kiev

Nick Art

I thought it was clear that I meant my comment jokingly, especially with former destinations like Damascus and Benghazi I thought that would be obvious.

As a fun fact: Benghazi was only cancelled in 2006, while Tripoli was served until 2009. (I wonder what political event made them cancell those flights...)


On a more serious note though, I think that some destinations could be added and flown profitable even today:
Notably: Casablanca and Algiers (maybe Tunis) from GVA, Santiago (as a Tag on to GRU), Seoul, Seattle and maybe as new destinations Mexico City, Anchorage (by Edelweiss) and Houston.

While I'd obviously love to have flights to Baku, Almaty, Astana, Yerevan and Tbilisi (maybe as one big ZRH-TBS-EVN-BKU-ALA-AST-TSE ), those are already well enough served by LH or OS, same with the other middle eastern destinations. The LX middle eastern destinations like Jeddah and Riyadh were actually cut by and moved to LH (which was sad imo), same with some of the African destinations and in the beginning even Singapore!

Keep in mind that most of the former SR route network is still being served by LH Group, just not LX itself. There's only a few destinations missing, some of which I could imagine being added to the LH Group network and actually working. Mombasa, Karachi (as a tag on maybe?), Libreville, Kuala Lumpur, Jakkarta, Manila are the only ones that come to mind right now. And to be honest Kuala Lumpur and Jakkarta are probably well enough served by codeshares from SIN or BKK, while the others are pretty niche destinations. But then again, Edelweiss used to fly to Kilimanjaro (there is actually a village with an airport large enough to handle an A330 there!)


What do you think? Which former SR routes or maybe even new routes could be successfully flown by LX or LH Group in its current state? Maybe even Sydney by OS again?

airoli

The GRU-SCL tag-on never made money and will not come back. LX has no brand reputation in that market, no alliance partners on either end, and a terrible flight frequency. Compare that to the substantial extra cost of crewing that segment: The crew flies in from ZRH, rests a day in GRU, does GRU-SCL-GRU, rests another day, then returns home.

As for all these other destinations, what data do you base your assumptions on? Also keep in mind that airport and airways capacity is finite, so even with theoretically unlimited supplies of crew and aircraft, airlines need to prioritize where they want to hunt for profit.

Nick Art

In 2016 I had the similar joy to fly on SR codeshared flight one last time from Rio de Janeiro

LXA350

Likely we would have had 2-4 more long haul destinations and additional medium / short haul routes out of ZRH in addition to what will be added next March, if the operational restrictions at ZRH would not be that bad. If we will not see any fundamental improvements that will allow further growth going forward, every possible additional destination to be added will be a little miracle

Nick Art

SCL I imagine would be similar to MCT, MCT being only served by LX as a *A carrier and as a tag on from Dubai being usually rather empty.
SCL is only served by the codeshares operated by latam or avianca over Bogota if you want to fly from Europe and not connect in Houston or Toronto, which I find rather annoying. Air Canada does a tag on from SCL to Buenos Aires, Air France actually manages to have a daily flight to SCL and LIM and while I obviously don't have the background view of financials of these airlines I'd appreciate the more possibilities in destinations. Lima and Santiago being the biggest holes in the south american market in my opinion.

I am aware that airlines obviously concentrate their capacity on the most profitable routes and My question isn't if it'd in general make sense for the airlines to add these routes, but which ones you could see as working financially and load factor wise if they were to add them, not which ones would make 100% sense out of prioritizing compared to other routes.

As for Casablanca, LH flights are usually very full with a departure at 2AM and Air France manages to make four daily flights, Royal Air Maroc operates long hauls to Paris with additional frequency to France by other airlines, I think Swiss could have a piece of that market by flying from GVA. Tourism + the home market of people going from Marocco to France and back to visit relatives etc. And not to mention that the partially seasonal daily LX flight to RAK are allways very full.
As for Algiers and Tunis, same as above, but of course those routes would be more slim routes, maybe twice or thrice a week.

As for Seoul, Seattle and Houston, I don't think I need to explain.

As for Anchorage, I always felt that this would be a good additional destination for Edelweiss, which I guess I was somehow correct, since LH is planning on flying with Eurowings there.

Mexico City being the more creative one, I'm not sure it'd be doable from Zurich with the flights from LH from FRA and MUC, but I could see it working with traffic going to Mexico itself and central America and maybe some south america connecting traffic (copa to panama, avianca to bogota and san salvador) and judging from how well Edelweiss is doing on Business traffic to San jose I think it could be possible.

San Gottardo