Trouble in the Skies: Swiss Subsidiary of Lufthansa Cancels 1,400 Flights This Summer
Swiss airline arm of Lufthansa faces summer disruption with 1400 flight cancellations.
Flying high this summer just got trickier for Swiss, a Swiss-based offshoot of Lufthansa. You might think rising travel demand would be their secret sauce, but alas, a major hitch awaits - more flights being grounded than ever before!
Swiss is cancelling a whopping 1,400 flights this spring and summer owing to a stubborn pilot crunch. The root cause, you ask? A mix of unforeseen events and overly optimistic planning, causing a mismatch between flights and the pilots available to fly them. That's right; it seems they bit off more than they could chew.
From long-haul flights to short and medium-haul ones, all types of journeys are affected. A spokesperson from Swiss confirmed the cancellations to industry news site "Aerotelegraph."
These cancelled flights add up to 1.5 percent of Swiss' flight schedule between April and October. According to "Aerotelegraph," more pilots are missing duty for extended periods due to events such as pregnancies and accidents. Adding to the woes, retraining crews for new Airbus A350 planes scoops up more resources, leaving fewer pilots for other flights. In addition, a new collective labor agreement has led to an increased demand for personnel by about 70 full-time positions.
To make matters more challenging, maintaining the Airbus A220 jets due to engine problems is also a headache, as shared by Swiss manager Oliver Buchhofer with a specialist portal. Although they have enough A320 jets, they don't have enough crews to operate them effectively. Attempts to seek assistance from fellow partners and Lufthansa have already reached their limit.
In the short term, some veteran pilots are delaying their retirement, and part-time team members are temporarily ramping up their hours to cope with the crunch. Swiss is also developing plans to broaden cockpit training capacity and hire up to 110 new pilots each year.
Sources: ntv.de, as/dpa
- Lufthansa Group
- Skills Shortage
- Pilot Retirements
Insights:- The pilot shortage at Swiss is linked to a confluence of circumstances such as unanticipated events, over-optimistic projections, pilots going off duty, crew retraining, a new labor agreement enhancing personnel demand, and aircraft maintenance issues.- Swiss is working on expanding its cockpit training capacity and plans to welcome more than 100 new pilots per year.- To handle the immediate shortage, Swiss is making use of older pilots and part-time team members, albeit temporarily.
The Swiss subsidiary of Lufthansa, embroiled in a pilot crunch, is forced to cancel 1,400 flights this spring and summer, causing disruptions to various travelers' lifestyles. To mitigate the shortage, the community policy includes plans to broaden vocational training for pilots and hire up to 110 new trainees annually, aiming to resolve the skills gap and meet the demands of their vocational training programs.
