Edelweiss Launching Zurich To Seattle Flights

Between Condor and Edelweiss, some of these North American routes are odd. I don’t see Seattle as being especially popular with Swiss or Germans. Germans tourists either go to the beach or do the mountains and high desert. I assume the Swiss are the same. I’m a little surprised Salt Lake City isn’t on the list of seasonal destinations for one or both of these airlines. Denver and Las Vegas make a lot of sense. I would think maybe Reno, Bozeman or Spokane would be interesting, but they make not have the U.S. immigration and customs staff.

So the Monday crew has a 5 night layover in Seattle? That's pretty nice for them but terrible for margins on this flight.. Combined with an A340 I don't see how this flight will make any money.

Edelweiss isn't flying to San Diego anymore. That was before Covid.

@ Jan -- Whoops, my mistake, thanks for pointing that out. Updated.

@ GroeneMichel -- Edelweiss has tons of 2-3x weekly flights, so it's common for the crews to have very long layovers. Obviously that contributes to higher crewing costs, but it seems to work for the airline, somehow...

I don't see Premium Economy on the seat map, just extra legroom, extra recline "Economy Max." These are still 2-4-2 like maxless economy.

@Ben--you failed to mention a strong reason for service to Seattle, its seasonality, and tourist orientation: Alaska cruises are very popular with Europeans and a lot of those cruises depart from Seattle.

I have no clue how much travel there might be to Switzerland from Seattle currently but twice weekly seasonal service likely won't move the needle much. Still, people from this area love to travel, so who knows? Time will tell.

Eurowings flew briefly to SLC from FRA recently but the loads/yields must have been poor because the route didn't last long.

Monday and Saturday are a bit odd days, but maybe that's what the aircraft availability was.
I assume Swiss is testing the waters with this and ultimately will contemplate a mainline flight. I have not been on the MUC-SEA flight, but the FRA flights are usually pretty full (as are the LHR flights), so I assume the transatlantic demand to Seattle is there.
I welcome this development, while SeaTac remains a crappy airport.

TATL is a struggle out of SEA despite it being a joint SkyTeam/OW hub.

You have Delta which will only ever do its 3 JV airports of CDG/LHR/AMS and nothing else.

Alaska has failed to meaningfully attract good partners. BA's 2x LHR is whatever, a seasonal, non-daily HEL service w/ AY. Condor is not bad, but only 3x weekly in the off-season. Aer Lingus (lol) similarly has inconsistent year round service.

Turkish Airlines on the other hand has been killing it w/ now 2x daily service, LH has been expanding hard w/ their MUC and FRA service. I'd expect to see SWISS expand there and maybe it'll finally get a Star Alliance lounge operating out of SEA or something less mediocre than the current options.

Yes, FNT Delta Diamond doesn't think Swiss and Germans like Seattle, so the route is bad.

They've clearly analyzed the market demographics and traffic and decided this was optimal use. SEA has very high O&D demand, higher than a lot of the big Florida airports, if you can believe like MIA, FLL, and TPA.

SEA is a pretty tourist heavy destination during the summer. 2x weekly is pretty innocuous and easily to fill up

If Germans go to the mountains, why would they not go to Seattle?

Edelweiss is not a Star Alliance member so earning miles and MM points is subject to certain conditions.

"TATL is a struggle out of SEA"

Huh? The only US airports west of Texas with more transatlantic options than Seattle, are L.A. and San Francisco. That's hardly "struggling."

they fly to YVR, and flights are available on both united mileage and aeroplan

As others have mentioned, this seems aimed at the cruise market out of SEA. Just for perspective--Cirium noted that the busiest domestic route (by seats) in July 2024 for SEA-ANC, and a decent amount of that is cruise traffic.

I find 1 hour 35 minutes to turnaround an aircraft of that size to be optimistic.

LAX/SFO have way more interesting options. You get LIS, MAD, BCN, FCO, CPH, OSL, WAW, VIE, TLV (EU/Asia-ish), so much more.

SEA just has the boring, generic EU megahubs along with heavily seasonalized, non-daily service, which is a struggle. YVR is half the size and gets the same options.

Considering the relative size of the airports, yes, it is a struggle for travelers to get to where they want in EU. Eurobiz connections are dreadful, and flying transcon to a TATL hub is even worse.

Well, for LH, UA and AC miles you are o.k., as long as you book under LX code (not WK). But no miles/status benefits for other *A members.

As far as I know, they are sometimes shuttling crews to nearby destinations. A bus transfer to YVR would be obvious option in the case of SEA.

You’re saying Seattle, the number one visited city in the summer by Americans and can fill multiple directs from other euro cities isn’t an attractive market but maybe Reno, Bozeman, or *Spokane* would be worthy of a direct flight from Switzerland?

I’m confused being swiss American. Like Saturday somewhat makes sense on way back but Monday is a bit odd.

Also adding as an American and swiss, this Monday/ Saturday journey makes it tough to make a trip out of it

Also adding as an American and swiss, this Monday/ Saturday journey makes it tough to make a trip out of it

Your posts get more nonsensical as you go.

Aside from LAX and SFO, there's only 4 more cities in the country (NYC, WAS, MIA, CHI) that have that variety of transatlantic penetration. Even major transatlantic gateways like Atlanta and Boston don't. Are they "struggling?" Ridiculous.

You're arbitrarily very hostile, due to your own poor reading comprehension.

SEA has comparatively few daily, year-round, nonstop options to Europe, plain and simple. People going from SEA to Europe are almost always forced to connect in undesirable ways, often long 5+ hour transcons or the low quality Eurobiz.

You randomly decided to get offended and go on a wild Tim Dunn styled rant.

"You're arbitrarily very hostile, due to your own poor reading comprehension."

Don't get it twisted: I completely understood what you said, I just found it rather moronic. 🙂

Reminding you that only six-ish airports in the country, offer the kind of transatlantic penetration that you seem to think is a baseline for convenience, is not a "rant." Those are called facts. You should acquaint yourself with them at some point.

Denver is west of Texas.

I'm wondering if the WK7 passengers will be greeted every morning with a certain Rodgers and Hammerstein musical song?

"Denver is west of Texas."

And? Denver doesn't have anywhere near the transatlantic options as Seattle.

It's nice to see Edelweiss expanding into the US, but it still doesn't move the needle for me, as J awards are impossible to book on Edelweiss via a partner.

And as a TPA based flyer, it stings even more not being able to fly the TPA-ZRH route.

Stay the heck away from Lufthansa Group carriers. The layout and service is horrible and the award redemption are not any lower in Business Class.
I recently did a trip on Lufthansa from YVR to MUC and it was an A350. Worst configuration in J class. Food and wine selection horrible. Worse yet, when I wanted to sleep, there was no bedding or even slippers as the YVR-MUC route is not considered long haul as explained by the FA.
Continued MUC-VIE-BKK and the Austrian Air FA'S are embarrassed at the lowering of quality standards on F&B and sleeping amenities.

Stay the heck away from Lufthansa Group carriers. The layout and service is horrible and the award redemption are not any lower in Business Class.
I recently did a trip on Lufthansa from YVR to MUC and it was an A350. Worst configuration in J class. Food and wine selection horrible. Worse yet, when I wanted to sleep, there was no bedding or even slippers as the YVR-MUC route is not considered long haul as explained by the FA.
Continued MUC-VIE-BKK and the Austrian Air FA'S are embarrassed at the lowering of quality standards on F&B and sleeping amenities.

Maybe with your obvious depth of knowledge of international passenger markets, you should get a job as an airline schedule planner?

Lufthansa is just sad. They totally screwed up my return from Europe last month and put me up in a crappy room at the Sheraton in Frankfurt with a ‘free meal’ which was a buffet in a conference room. And I swear nobody works at Frankfurt airport. I walked by 2 Lufthansa service centers at 530 on a Monday (we were told to visit them) and they were ghost towns. I went to the business class lounge and they helped me, I was flying biz class on a paid ticket. Customer Service is just abysmal, except for the 2 ladies at the lounge. I never got an email or text about my delays or my options. I flew back the next day on Condor, which was lovely btw. I was honestly shocked by the seat and the service, since the biz seats and service on most Lufthansa planes are terrible. Totally agree with Anthony Joseph. Stay away.

Washington state several large and very active Swiss clubs. There is a lot of Swiss people who come to visit family and friends who immigrated to the state!