On Saturday 4th February 2023 the first flight to Zurich, Switzerland took off from Bristol Airport. This new route operated by Swiss Airlines operates once a week but from April will increase to three times a week to the popular Swiss destination.
The first flight was operated by an Airbus A220-300 HB-JCR, a 4 year old aircraft from the Swiss Airlines fleet. It is expected the aircraft will eventually change to an Embraer 195 E2 of Helvetic Airlines who operate flights for Swiss Airlines.
This isnt the first time flights to Switzerland from Bristol Airport have happened, in the past flights with Helvetic on a Fokker 100 have operated sometimes with a pickup in Cardiff Airport before onward to the final destination.
Shaun Browne, Head of Airline Relations, Bristol Airport said “This is an incredibly exciting day for Bristol Airport and the region. SWISS is a major global airline and this decision shows confidence in the region. The regular scheduled service between Bristol and Switzerland opens up a wide range of European and worldwide connections to our customers. Zurich is a great city whether for business or leisure and the link between the cities allows us to promote the South West and Wales region to inbound visitors from Switzerland and beyond. We see great potential for this service and are delighted SWISS have already confirmed they will be increasing the frequency to three flights a week in the summer and we will continue to work with SWISS on other exciting route opportunities for the future.”
We wish the new route well and this kicks off a great new year of new airlines and routes starting from the South West regional airport.

Simon has been writing aviation articles for nearly 10 years and is the senior article writer at Fresh Aviation, with a background in aviation and a commercial pilot Simon knows his stuff in the aviation world. Simon has spoken on BBC Radio, contributed to Bristol Post and has various aviation articles on various websites.