SWISS Outlines Initial CS100 Operations

MIAMI — SWISS announced today its initial scheduled Bombardier CS100 operations, thus becoming the first operator of the regional jetliner.According to the airline, the delivery of the first CSeries is expected to take place, as scheduled, at the end of June. The first scheduled flight will be LX638 from Zurich to Paris Charles de Gaulle next July 15. The aircraft will offer 125 seats arranged in a two-class layout, with 16 seats in Business Class and 109 in Economy Class.Besides Paris, other initial SWISS CSeries destinations will be Manchester, Prague and Budapest, followed by Warsaw and Brussels at the end of August and Nice, Stuttgart, Hannover, Milan, Florence and Bucharest in September.SWISS will deploy the CSeries in the routes currently served by its Avro RJ100s, which are heading to retirement as the new aircraft join the fleet. The carrier also informed that the Zurich - London City CSeries service is expected to take place from the first quarter of 2017.The last month, Bombardier completed the European route-proving program of its CS100, including more than 30 city-pairs. The program, which lasted three weeks, included flights to several major cities. At that time, Peter Wojahn, Chief Technical Officer, SWISS said “the route-proving program provided us with a real indication of how the CSeries will operate in our route system (…) [and] we are very pleased and impressed with the results.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywWi11YHB7wThe CS100 conducted flights using standard airline flight operations and routes, with no passengers onboard. The program provided data on the behavior and performance of the new jetliner under a typical airline schedule to and from different airports. Airfield performance, landings, airport turnarounds and on-ground operations are some of the characteristics observed.SWISS is currently undergoing a major fleet renewal. This year, the carrier took delivery of its first Boeing 777-300ER. By the end of August, SWISS will have received five more Boeing 777s of an initial order of nine, intended to replace part of its aging Airbus A340-300 fleet.