Swiss has just announced two new long haul destinations, which come as the airline plans to take delivery of their last two 777-300ERs in early 2020 (they will have a total of 12 of these planes in their fleet).

Swiss doesn’t actually plan to use the 777 for either route, but rather will swap around planes so they can use lower capacity A330s and A340s on the new routes.

New Swiss flight from Zurich to Washington

Swiss will launch daily nonstop flights between Zurich and Washington as of March 29, 2020. The airline will operate the flight using the following schedule:

LX70 Zurich to Washington departing 1:45PM arriving 5:00PM
LX71 Washington to Zurich departing 8:35PM arriving 10:40AM (+1 day)

Swiss will use an A330-300 for the route, featuring a total of 236 seats, including eight first class seats, 45 business class seats, and 183 economy seats.

Swiss is part of the Star Alliance transatlantic joint venture, so this means that there will be two daily flights between Zurich and Washington, as United flies the route as well. Swiss will also join their Lufthansa Group partners Lufthansa, Austrian, and Brussels, in offering service to Washington.

Lufthansa already flies to Washington from Frankfurt and Munich

Washington will be Swiss’ eighth US destination, after Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, and San Francisco.

New Swiss flight from Zurich to Osaka

Swiss will launch 5x weekly nonstop flights between Zurich and Osaka as of March 1, 2020. The airline will operate the flight using the following schedule:

LX162 Zurich to Osaka departing 1:00PM arriving 7:50AM (+1 day)
LX163 Osaka to Zurich departing 10:05AM arriving 3:45PM

Swiss will use an A340-300 for the route, featuring a total of 223 seats, including eight first class seats, 45 business class seats, and 183 economy seats. The airline is in the process of refreshing the cabins on these planes, so you can expect the A340 will feature these updated cabins.

Swiss A340-300 first class

This will be Swiss’ second destination in Japan, as the airline also flies to Tokyo Narita.

Swiss upgrading two routes to 777-300ERs

As mentioned above, these new routes are made possible by Swiss taking delivery of two new 777-300ERs. Since Swiss is using an A330 and A340 for the Washington and Osaka flights, the airline will be upgrading two existing routes to 777s:

  • Zurich to Tokyo will be operated by a 777 as of February 2020
  • Zurich to Miami will be operated entirely by 777s as of summer 2020

Swiss 777-300ER

Bottom line

We’ve known for a while that Swiss was planning on taking delivery of their last two 777s next year, and I was curious to see what kind of expansion this would lead to.

The Zurich to Washington route has been rumored for a long time, so I’m not at all surprised to see that. Swiss is the last major Lufthansa Group airline to now add service there.

The Osaka route is logical, though not quite as obvious, in my opinion. Also keep in mind that they’re adding this second Japanese route ahead of what will be a very big year in Japan, as the Olympics are being hosted in Tokyo in 2020.

What do you make of Swiss’ long haul expansion?

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