Swiss (LX, Zurich) has taken delivery of its first of nine B777-300(ER)s on order from Boeing (BOE, Washington National). The aircraft, HB-JNA (msn 44582), was ferried from Everett to Zurich on Friday, January 29 and is in actual fact wet-leased from sister firm Swiss Global Air Lines (Zurich).
The B777s will be used to replace Swiss's outgoing fleet of A340-300s with six B777s scheduled to replace six A340s this year. Thereafter, a further three B777s - set to arrive in February and April of 2017 and March of 2018 - will replace three other A340s - destined for Swiss's leisure subsidiary Edelweiss Air (WK, Zurich) - over the same period.
Operations-wise, the B777 is scheduled to begin shorthaul crew familiarization flights early next month with destinations set to include: Geneva, Barcelona El Prat, Frankfurt International, London Heathrow, Hamburg Helmut Schmidt, Malaga, and Hannover. Longhaul operations are scheduled to start in late February with New York JFK followed by Montréal Trudeau, Hong Kong International, Los Angeles International, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, São Paulo Guarulhos, Tel Aviv Ben Gurion, and San Francisco which will roll out during the course of the year.
The B777-300(ER)s are configured with 340 seats, including eight in First Class, 62 in Business Class, and 270 in Economy.
