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SWISS new high-flyer in the test

Before Swiss International Airlines became the first airline in the world to put the Bombardier CSeries into service in July, Connoisseur Circle was on board the very first passenger flight.

The occasion for this extraordinary flight was the Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Dublin and the meeting of the CEOs of the Star Alliance airline alliance in Zurich. This meeting of Arline CEOs and selected journalists was the background for flight BBA 505 from Dublin to Zurich on June 3, for a commercial aircraft that is not yet in commercial service.

As Swiss is the launch customer for the long-delayed Canadian twinjet, in the 120-160-seater segment, this was the perfect opportunity for Bombardier to demonstrate the aircraft to potential airline bosses. "This is the first commercial flight of this CSeries - an extremely quiet airliner. It is around 2 decibels quieter in the cabin than the Airbus A320neo, which is also new," explains Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr. The flight was operated by one of the five Bombardier test aircraft. This meant that the cabin product installed on board was not the one that Swiss will be flying with. The flight attendants were also provided by Bombardier.

It was an ideal opportunity to get to know this aircraft better. Its spacious cabin luggage compartments in the style of a wide-body aircraft, for example, impressed many of the airline bosses on board. The cabin width of even the CSeries is 3.28 meters, while an Airbus A320 measures 3.70 meters. The cabin height in the aisle is 2.11 meters. This creates the feeling of a wide-body aircraft, although it is not one. Around 100 passengers are on board this special flight. Also impressive are the large windows in the cabin, which according to Bombardier are 50 percent larger than in the Airbus A320 used worldwide. The wide aisle in the middle of the cabin is also impressive, for example when the service trolly is on its way and it is easy to get out of the way. The regional aircraft also has a range of almost 6,000 kilometers.

Aviation history will be made on Friday, July 15, when 125 SWISS passengers fly from Zurich to Paris. We flew from Dublin to Zurich in one hour and 50 minutes and the jet consumed less than 2,900 kilograms of fuel, which is around 35 percent less than a twinjet from Airbus or Boeing, Bombardier managers are convinced.

SWISS is already planning to put nine CS-100s into service this year.
Connoisseur Circle will report on this.

Text: Kurt Hofmann