A few days remain to enter SWISS’ contest that will award the winner 2 Business Class tickets from the USA to Switzerland. Once in Switzerland, the winner will be spoiled with 3 nights at the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz where Spa treatments will be the main focus. In addition, the winner will also receive a pair of First Class Swiss Rail passes valid for travel around Switzerland for 8 days.
The focus of the contest is to celebrate SWISS’ 777 service between the USA and Zurich. Currently they use the 777 from Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. Later this year Chicago will be added to this list.
SWISS has once again updated their expected retirement date for the Avro RJ100 or as we like to refer to as the ‘Jumbolino’. She’s known as the Jumbolino due to the 4 jet engines that are strapped to the wings of a small regional aircraft.
Per SWISS’ previous update, the target retirement date was set for August 26, 2017 however they have moved the date up to August 16. Currently there are 7 ‘Jumbolinos’ left in service and most will be phased out over the summer months leading up to the August 16 date. At their peak in the LX fleet, 25 Jumbolinos were darting around SWISS destinations throughout Europe.
The reason for the minor shift is due to SWISS finally getting all the C-Series jets from Bombardier after extended delivery delays. Five have been put into service and one remains to be delivered. These aircraft will help fill in the void created by the removal of the Jumbolinos.
So for those of you who have a soft spot for aircraft entering retirement, start paying attention to the LX timetable for mid August. I suspect there may be another tweak or 2 left to the schedule before its finalized, but SWISS will publish the final timetable well ahead of the retirement party.
Earlier today, SWISS flight LX40 operating from Zurich to Los Angeles suffered an engine problem that required the shut down of the engine and an emergency diversion to a nearby airport. The aircraft flying to route was one of their newer 777 aircraft, tail number HB-JND.
The plane landed safely at Iqaluit Airport (YFB) after traveling nearly 3000 miles from Zurich. There is no immediate time frame for the continuation of the flight. The airport’s main runway was closed for nearly an hour after the aircraft arrived.
There actually was someone at the airport able to catch the emergency landing.
Iqaluit is in the Nunavut region of Canada near the entrance to Hudson Bay, and not far from Santa’s workshop in the North pole.
Santa’s Workshop is just a quick dog sled trip away…
A quick decision was made to divert. Graphic courtesy of FlightRadar24.com.
As luck would have it (for me at least), I have a friend who is on this flight so I expect hear all about his adventure in this remote outpost. If there’s anything interesting to share, I’ll follow up with another post.
UPDATE: Swiss has sent an aircraft from New York to pick up stranded passengers and take then onward to Los Angeles.
SWISS has announced that they will introduce the 777 on several flights between Zurich and Chicago beginning June 1, 2017. Specifically, the 777 will be assigned to Flight LX008 and LX009 for 6 of the 7 weekly flights. Overall, SWISS will maintain 12 flights per week between ZRH and ORD.
Here is what service will look like beginning June 1:
LX006 and 007 will still fly between ZRH and ORD 5 times a week (not Wednesdays/Fridays). The flights will be operated with A330-300 aircraft.
LX008 and 009 will fly daily and will have the 777 on the route everyday except Tuesdays. The Tuesday flight will be operated by an A330-300.
The 777 is expected to be on LX008/009 until October 28, 2017. I expect that the Airbuses will come back for the winter due to demand decrease.
PilotsEye.tv has available 2 documentaries covering a SWISS A330 flight between Zurich and Miami, and a roundtrip of a Lufthansa A380 between Frankfurt and San Francisco.
The SWISS A330 video released just in the past few weeks, provides over 2 hours of coverage including preflight and cockpit footage as well as footage from the Miami area including a visit to the SWISS Air Academy. Highlights of the video include a distress call from a nearby Delta aircraft, Thunderstorm departure and a look at ETOPS planning for flights over water. Here’s a teaser:
In their other ‘LH Group’ inspired release, they cover a Lufthansa flight between Frankfurt and San Francisco aboard a Lufthansa A380. One of the highlights of this edition is the retirement of Jürgen Raps, one of LH’s most senior captains. Other features of this video include highlights from the crew break in San Francisco including a cruise beneath the Golden Gate as well as flight planning to avoid an angry volcano which led to a rare view of Greenland.
