The airline Swiss was able to benefit from the high demand in the third quarter of 2023. This led to an operating result of 287,5 million Swiss francs in the first nine months of the current year. In the comparable period of the previous year, the company was deeply in the red at -375,5 million Swiss francs.

Earnings improved by 132,3 percent to 3,18 billion Swiss francs. In the third quarter of 2022, the operating result was 220,5 million euros. The management of the Swiss Lufthansa subsidiary is currently assuming that the current financial year will “close with a solid profit”.

“In this quarter, which is financially the most important for us as an airline, the industry-wide shortage of supply and the high backlog demand for air travel created favorable market conditions. Thanks to the effective restructuring and a high level of flight schedule stability, we were able to convert these into strong results in the summer months," says Swiss CFO Markus Binkert.

In total, Swiss carried around 9,3 million passengers from January to September, around two and a half times as many as in the same period of the previous year. During this period, the carrier operated over 78.000 flights, more than double the number of the previous year. In the first nine months of 2022, the Lufthansa subsidiary offered a total of 82,5 percent more seat kilometers (ASK) across the entire route network, and the number of revenue seat kilometers (RPK) rose by 186,6 percent in the same period. The average seat load factor was 79,6 percent and was thus 28,9 percentage points above the previous year's figure.

In the third quarter, Swiss transported 4,0 million passengers compared to 2,6 million in the same period last year. The airline operated almost 31.000 flights compared to around 22.000 in the third quarter of 2021. At 89,4 percent, the seat load factor was 23,0 percentage points higher than in the previous year. Overall, more than 99 percent of flights were carried out according to plan in the third quarter.

“The agreements that we recently reached with the social partners of the ground and cockpit staff create new perspectives and strengthen our operational stability. They will therefore be fundamental to our business success beyond 2022. We are assuming that we will also be able to conclude the CLA negotiations with our social partner for the cabin crew by the end of November," says Swiss boss Dieter Vranckx.