In late 2022, SWISS formally announced that it would add Airbus A350s to its fleet. There’s now an interesting update — while the airline was initially only officially supposed to receive at least five of these jets, that has now doubled, to 10 jets. Let’s go over all the details of what we can expect.
In this post:
SWISS’ long haul fleet currently consists of Boeing 777-300ERs, Airbus A330-300s, and Airbus A340-300s. SWISS belongs to Lufthansa Group, and the overall airline group places aircraft orders centrally, and then allocates planes accordingly.
Lufthansa Group has dozens of Airbus A350-900s and Boeing 787-9s on order, and these will be split between Lufthansa, SWISS, and Austrian. What we know for sure as of now is that SWISS will take delivery of 10 Airbus A350-900s — the first five should be delivered between the summer of 2025 and the end of 2027, while the other five should be delivered by the end of 2031. So that’s quite a slow delivery timeline, with an average of under two new jets per year.
The first batch of A350s will be used to replace the carrier’s fleet of four Airbus A340-300s. Meanwhile the remaining A350s will be used to replace SWISS’ oldest Airbus A333-300s. Both the Airbus A330-300s and Boeing 777-300ERs have a long term place in SWISS’ fleet, so for the A330s, it’ll only be a partial fleet replacement. The A350 is an incredible aircraft, with huge range, excellent economics, and great passenger comfort.
For context on the rest of the Lufthansa Group fleet, the plan is for Austrian to take delivery of Boeing 787s, and for Lufthansa to take delivery of both Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s. Keep in mind that a lot more A350s could be coming SWISS’ way in the future, beyond the current 10. Not all of the Lufthansa Group A350s have been allocated yet.
This is part of the Lufthansa Group’s A350 orderSWISS has a cool video that it published about the A350 joining its fleet, which is well done. There’s more to the video than meets the eyes, with lots of hidden clues. For example, the alarm goes off at 3:40AM, which I have to imagine is a reference to the A340.
Here’s what SWISS CEO Jens Fehlinger had to say about this order:
“Our new Airbus A350s will make our fleet even more modern. This is a major investment, and a vital one to ensure that we continue to meet our customers’ high expectations. With these advanced twinjets and their innovative cabins, we’re bringing our long-haul aircraft fleet up to a totally new level of modernity, sustainability and inflight comfort for our guests.”
The Lufthansa Group is in the process of overhauling its cabins. Lufthansa has its new Allegris cabins, which include a new first class and new business class. SWISS will also be introducing new cabin interiors as of 2025, which will be known as SWISS Senses.
This is essentially the same product that Lufthansa is introducing, except it will feature SWISS branding. So you can expect SWISS to introduce a new f