LONDON – Swiss has announced an expansion of their wet-lease agreement with Helvetic for the summer season. It comes after the agreement was significantly cut due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swiss-Helvetic deal was for eight aircraft.
This was cut to four as part of Swiss’ cost-saving measures. Additionally, the airline cut 15 of their own aircraft from the fleet and 1700 full-time jobs.
The new agreement will see Swiss have the wet lease of up six aircraft, however, more aircraft will be available if required.
The agreement is made up of a mix of Embraer E190 E2 and Embraer E195 E2 aircraft.
The aircraft features 112 seats and 134 seats respectively.
Alongside the fleet increase with Helvetic, Swiss are also facing serious staff shortages.
The airline has contacted 334 previous flight attendants to return to Swiss, with around half accepting the offer.
The crew had been previously let go by Swiss because of the aforementioned job cuts.
