SWISS to Inaugurate San Francisco-Zürich Service

Airbus 340 slated for long-haul flight; SWISS service will make the time pass

SWISS just announced a new non-stop between San Francisco and Zürich, and I cheered, both for European skiers heading for North American mountains and for U.S. skiers heading for the Alps. The service is scheduled to begin on June 2, so skiers from both continents will have to wait until the winter of 2009-10. There will be six flights a week, and flight numbers and timetable are already in place:

San Francisco-Zürich (SFO-ZRH) LX 39 dep. 7:25 p.m. arr 3:40 p.m + the following day

Zürich-San Francisco (ZRH-SFO) LX 38 dep. 1:15 p.m. arr 4:30 p.m.

Deep-pocketed flyers will travel in the incomparable luxury of a SWISS First class cabin or the enhanced comfort of SWISS Business class with a new fully reclinable seats innovative air seat cushions that can be individually adjusted. Even for the rest of us, the carrier promises "a more comfortable SWISS economy experience."

And I don't doubt it. A lifetime ago, I worked as a sales promotion writer in New York for Swissair, the predecessor to the current SWISS. In those days, the airline's North American gateways were New York, Boston, Chicago, Montreal and Toronto. Today there are seven (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, and Montreal), and come June and the addition of San Francisco, there will be eight.