Interview: SWISS CCO Heike Birlenbach

DALLAS —  As part of our Airline Review, we discussed the latest SWISS’ (LX) developments with Heike Birlenbach. After a successful career in the Lufthansa Group, Heike took office as Chief Commercial Officer on January 1, 2024. 

Heike is a member of Edelweiss Air AG's board of directors. She holds an International Master’s of Practicing Management from McGill University and started her career in Sales at Lufthansa (LH). 

2025 will mark an important milestone for SWISS. The Zurich-based airline is preparing to introduce its new cabin, “SWISS Senses”, and its next-generation airliner, the Airbus A350-900XWB. The understandable excitement is the result of some hard work that was necessary after the COVID-19 pandemic. In this timeframe, and like most airlines worldwide, SWISS experienced a rapid decrease and increase in revenue, passengers, and destination network. Heike told Airways: 

“Due to the pandemic, all the capacity had to go down to almost zero, and it was very difficult to bring that up again. After the pandemic, it was hard to coordinate with the whole supply chain. Likewise, it was very difficult for the airports to gather resources to resume normal operations. The situation is improving now; however, some challenges still persist. Despite the added challenges, summer 2024 allowed us to carry similar numbers of passengers as in 2019.”

SWISS has overcome most of the COVID-19 challenges, and is preparing to receive its first A350-900XWB in 2025. The aircraft will be equipped with SWISS Senses, the airline’s latest cabin product, which promises to revolutionize the travel experience in all classes. The SWISS Senses cabin will gradually be rolled out on long-haul aircraft, continuing SWISS' consistent four-class offer. 

“We are still confident that we can expect our first A350 in Summer 2025. We are positive as the cabin interior is already certified, so we don't have to wait for lengthy certifications by the FAA or EASA. That helps a lot. The second A350 will join our fleet around two months later. The Airbus A340-300 will be operated until the new A350s are fully integrated into our fleet. We do not want to reduce capacity and cancel destinations; our network’s stability is a core priority. Of course, the A350s will be delivered with the new SWISS Senses cabin. In 2026, we will start retrofitting the A330 fleet with the new product, and we can expect a monthly installation on existing aircraft.”

About the new product, Heike said:

“We jointly developed the new product with Lufthansa. Technically, it's the same baseline for both of us, but the SWISS look and feel will be completely different. Like now, we will still be one of the few airlines in the world – if not the only one – to fly a consistent four-class configuration across all our long-haul aircraft.” Heike Birlenbach told us after.

‍

SWISS Zurich Operations

Operating out of Zurich airport offers some unique challenges. Of these, punctuality performance has been a recurrent topic for airlines serving Zurich. As the main operator of Switzerland’s busiest airport, LX has been impacted by Zurich's ongoing staff and resources shortages. Recently, SWISS’ CEO Jens Fehlinger commented: 

“We now need to continue to work closely with our partners,” Fehlinger continued, “especially to raise our punctuality and the customer satisfaction that is so closely tied to this. This is an area where we are not yet satisfied. And it’s one we’ll be putting a firm focus on in the coming months.” About punctuality, Heike told us: 

“Our punctuality currently stands at 63%, which is certainly not enough. Our midterm target for the entire year 2024 is 70%, so we have to get more punctual again in the future. However, the majority of delays are not caused by any resource restraints within SWISS, but rather by external factors, such as air traffic control shortages across Europe, weather-related constraints or other bottlenecks. And since we are geographically in the middle of Europe, we have to deal with all the air traffic restrictions, north, south, east, and west. We have initiated multiple initiatives together with our suppliers in different areas to make sure that within all these current limitations, we get the best out of it for our passengers. I believe that also next year we'll still have to struggle with air traffic control in Europe.”  

Aircraft Fleet, Capacity

Another issue that many airlines are experiencing is the lack of engine spare components and the increased off-wing times. This primarily affects the new-generation airliners, like the A320neo family and the A220s. About this, Heike continued: 

“Like many other airlines, we are experiencing some issues with our Pratt & Whitney engines. Unfortunately, this concerns our most modern aircraft that we would like to bring into the air, but we are unable to do so. We are in close contact with the manufacturer, but we can assume that this problem will still take quite some time. The engines must be taken off the aircraft more frequently than it's usually expected, so they need more maintenance and more checks than forecasted. I assume these issues will at least go on for the full next year and eventually continue in 2026. Once that is solved and we have proper engines for the aircraft that are already there, we will definitely reduce the amount of wet-leased-in aircraft to a minimum, but we will still maintain a few. They help us to vary our seasonal offer and to work more flexibly, which we are not able to do so in our own operation system.”

To keep its extensive European network and channel customers to long-haul destinations, SWISS has relied on wet leases in collaboration with external airline partners like airBaltic and Helvetic Airways as long-term strategic partners.

“Right now, we can manage the capacity via more wet leases than planned. In the summertime, about one-third of our continental capacity was served with wet leases. For example, we currently operate four to six aircraft from airBaltic.”

”Next year, we forecast about eight aircraft of our own fleet will still be on the ground, due to the Pratt & Whitney engines, so we will remain with a high share of wet-lease continental capacity. Given a connection share of around 60% in our long-haul network, the Continental feeder flights remain vital to fill the capacity of our long-haul network. ”