For years, the national airline SWISS has offered cheap flights to various short-haul destinations. But these low fares will soon be a thing of the past.
These tickets are by far the cheapest fare types but also the most restrictive ones in terms of baggage allowance, seat selection, and changes or refunds.
But even with these conditions, these airfares – for under 100 francs for a two-way ticket – have been very popular with travellers looking for weekend breaks in European cities.
That is about to change, however.
‘Green’ fuels
According to the airline’s CEO Jens Fehlinger, these ultra-cheap airfares “will no longer be realistic due to the price of environmentally-friendly fuels.”
The airline uses the so-called Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) alternative to fossil jet fuel, to meet its ambitious CO2 emissions reduction targets, which include achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and halving emissions by 2030.
As SAF “costs significantly more than conventional kerosene, and we will have to use more of it, this is not sustainable in the long term with low fares,” he pointed out.
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‘Flying must remain affordable’
However, Fehlinger also emphasised that Switzerland’s flagship carrier “will do everything to maintain fares that are as fair as possible because flying must remain affordable.”
This year, for instance, the airline offered heavily discounted flights – ranging in price from 450 to 550 francs – to the United States, to counter the drop in demand following Donald Trump’s election.
Therefore, due to what Swiss media calls the ‘Trump slump’, SWISS has launched special, lower-priced flights to the US to fill its planes.
READ ALSO: Where SWISS airline will fly to in summer 2026
