SWISS maintained stable and reliable flight operations for the fall holiday period of 26 September to 19 October 2025. More than 1.3 million travelers were transported over the period, an increase of some 32,000 or 2.5 percent on the same time last year. Difficult weather conditions throughout Europe and strike actions and further restrictions at air traffic control providers resulted in some delays. But despite these adversities, SWISS was able to improve both its on-time performance for the period and the overall stability of its flight operations.
Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) transported a total of 1,349,770 passengers over this year’s fall holiday period of 26 September to 19 October – an increase of 2.5 percent on the same time last year. A total of 10,349 SWISS flights were operated over the period (an average of some 430 a day), a 1.2-percent increase on fall 2024. The busiest day was Sunday 5 October, with 63,435 passengers carried – almost as many as on the record day to date this year of 28 July.
Punctuality and stability improved
Despite operating more flights and carrying more passengers, SWISS raised its departure punctuality throughout the fall holiday period. On-time performance for its flight departures amounted to 64.9 percent, a 3.1-percentage-point improvement on the prior-year period. Operational stability was also increased 1.2 percentage points to 98.9 percent. This means that 99 out of every hundred SWISS flights were operated as scheduled during the period – an achievement that exceeded the company’s own stability target for this year of 98 percent.
The number of baggage pieces conveyed during the fall holiday period was almost unchanged from its 2024 level. A total of 930,184 bags were carried in the cargo holds of the flights operated.
A strong operating performance in a challenging environment
Various factors posed challenges to SWISS’s flight operations – and thus also their punctuality – over the fall holiday period. Weather conditions were less than ideal, with wind, fog, tropical storms and severe thunderstorms in the Mediterranean region. The challenges were further heightened by strike actions (such as in Belgium and France) and the sometimes limited availabilities of aircraft and crews.
“We can see that our actions are working”
“Our goal for the 2025 fall holiday period was clear: to do better than we had last year in our punctuality, our stability and our reliability,” explains SWISS Chief Operating Officer Oliver Buchhofer. “We achieved that, and we’re pleased with this performance. And a big thank-you goes to all our people who helped us do so, for all their professionalism and commitment.”
“What we need to do now,” Buchhofer continues, “is consistently work on our learnings from this fall holiday season and further improve, from our rostering to our ground processes to our communications among our teams and above all with our customers. Only by doing so can we make ourselves even more robust and achieve further progress. Our customers rightly expect us to be a punctual Swiss-based airline; and this is precisely what we continue to work on, with confidence and clear priorities.”
US destinations particularly popular
Flights to the USA were in especially strong demand among SWISS’s fall holiday travelers, with New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami the most popular long-haul destinations. Within SWISS’s European network, London, Palma de Mallorca, Munich, Berlin and Barcelona were the favorite destinations for fall vacationers.
