The two Saturday flights are being operated by the Edelweiss carrier.
Keystone-SDA
Two special flights with 404 passengers, operated by the Edelweiss carrier, took off from Oman for Zurich on Saturday.
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The two Edelweiss planes left Muscat and Salalah and are expected to arrive in Zurich at 4.30pm and 6.30pm respectively. There are 215 Swiss nationals on board, a spokesperson for the airline told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Saturday.
The special flights are being organised in coordination with the Swiss foreign ministry, which says they are aimed at travellers stranded in Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Thousands of Swiss nationals are blocked in various Gulf states as a result of the US-Israeli offensive against Iran. Earlier this week, on Thursday afternoon, a special flight from Muscat operated by Swiss International Air Lines landed in Zurich with 211 Swiss on board.
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Situation changing daily: SWISS CEO
For Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS), meanwhile, the situation is constantly changing in the Middle East, and the firm is taking a day-by-day approach, the company’s CEO Jens Fehlinger told Swiss public radio, SRF, on Saturday. When in doubt, SWISS always errs on the side of caution for passengers and employees, he added.
The airline has a crisis management team and is in close contact with the foreign ministry, Fehlinger explained. He added that it is very challenging to organise special flights, but “if help is needed, SWISS is ready”. However, he said, it is important that people on the ground can get to Muscat, as SWISS flies from Oman to Zurich.
The airline has temporarily suspended flights to the important hub of Dubai and to Tel Aviv in Israel. However, the new war in the Middle East is also making air travel to Asia more difficult in general, as only three narrow routes via the North Pole, Turkey/Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia are still available.
However, capacity is currently sufficient. Although there is much more traffic on these routes, flights can be operated safely. It is still too early to quantify the financial damage to SWISS caused by the current conflicts, said Fehlinger.
Adapted from German by AI/dos
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