In September 2023, SWISS’ leisure subsidiary, Edelweiss Air, announced plans to completely overhaul its long haul fleet. There’s now an exciting update, as the first of these jets has landed in Zurich, and will be entering service in the coming weeks. Let’s cover all the details.
Continue reading: Edelweiss Acquiring Airbus A350s, Retiring Airbus A340s
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Lucky, can you post a write up on best ways to book Edelweiss awards? Best websites to search availability, which mileage currencies are optimal, etc. It seems Edelweiss awards (especially in J) are pretty elusive and Google searches turn up minimal information.
9volt
We booked last month for this summer through Air Canada. Flying MXP to YVR via Zurich for 70k points each for wife and I. Friend also booked same route flying a week earlier. We found availability through points.me
LATAM A359s used to have very good Safran economy seats - I suppose one of the best seats you can find in A350 worldwide. I suspect that Edelweiss with its "megainvestment" will install shitty Recaro CL3710 instead. May we ask WK not to touch JJ's seats, just replace upholstery if needed?
"The airline puts business class between extra legroom economy and economy, which you don’t often see."
I actually surprised that we don't see more of this. In theory, it helps with balance, so that you don't have to trim the aircraft as much during cruise, and thus save fuel via the reduced drag.
Edelweiss did this because it inherited old SWISS planes and removed the old first class. Rather than rip up half the interior to move biz seats to the front, it put economy in the front and left biz where it was.
Last year I flew DEN-ZRH on an A320 in J. The mid cabin and seat layout was unusual to say the least.
Privacy was minimal, service mediocre at best …. all in all, a flight one choses to forget.
Sorry Edelweiss.
I loved my flight on the throne seat in first row business, especially because the flight attendant did not want to waste 2 glasses of champagne, as she returned to the galley. She rather let me have them. 😎
The reason for this is that the doors 3L/R3 (counted from the front) in the A340 are significantly smaller (Swiss ordered the A340 in that way). For safety reasons (evacuation) the number of seats between doors 2 and 3 is limited. For the Edelweiss configuration, this means that Business must be located between these doors in order to bring the number of seats below the number permitted for this zone. This would not be possible with pure Coach seating in this area.
@ Ben Schlappig
Do you think the a350s will come to Tampa
Would love to see it as a Tampa based flyer
It was a small fleet when they had it, barely 15 aircraft. Only their Brazilian subsidiary had it.
The capacity of 339 seats also slots slightly above their B787-9 303.
They figured that any route the A350 can do, the B787-9 can also do it a bit more efficiently and profitably.
The aircrafts was also acquired when they were separate entities. TAM Brazil had A350-900 and B777-300ER, LAN Chile was with B767-300ER and B787.
We flew Zurich to Tampa 4 years ago in business class. Never again! Also no wifi in 2025 is pathetic. The best European destination carrier from TPA is Delta. BA and Virgin utilize their old aircraft on TPA to UK flights. Seems we don't deserve the better and newer aircraft!