After only two years of restarting the route, Air China will suspend the direct flight from Beijing-Zurich from October 14, 2019. According to the Swiss travel news platform - "Travel News" reported, learned from the tourism partners that have business dealings with Air China, Beijing direct flights operated by Air China to and from Zurich(CA781/782) will be grounded from October 14.

Maiden flight for Air China's 50th A330

The news triggered speculation by the Swiss media. Many Swiss business and tourism agencies are concerned that Chinese tourists may be reduced as a result.

According to data from the Swiss Tourism Board, the number of Chinese tourists staying in Switzerland in 2000 was 234,000 and soared to about 1.73 million in 2018. Chinese tourists spend an average of 380 Swiss francs per day in Switzerland, which is also the highest among foreign tourists. The analysis believes that Air China's flight to and from Zurich will potentially lead to a shortage of passengers.

In June 2017, after several years of grounding, Air China restarted the direct flight from Beijing to Zurich. The source speculates that Air China's reason for abandoning this direct route is related to the two air crashes of the Boeing 737MAX. In the situation of current fleet shortage, the relatively new route from Beijing to Zurich quickly became a victim.

Air China is introducing a large number of Airbus A350 passenger aircraft. Perhaps in the next two to three years, this aircraft will be used on the direct route from Beijing to Zurich.

Also included in Air China's winter season timetable, the Chengdu-Kunming-Yangon, Chengdu-Lhasa-Kathmandu and Hangzhou-Surat Thani routes will be discontinued as well (all starting October 27).

Air China continues to believe in the potential of the German-speaking Swiss market. However, the focus is now on the Geneva flight which operates under a joint venture agreement with the Lufthansa Group.

"Why did China Air China really suspended the Zurich route?"

Although it make sense that Air China, like all other big carriers out there, it's facing aircraft shortage due to the global grounding of B737 MAX, however the Beijing - Zurich route is a long haul route that requires a wide-body aircraft.

The route will operate til October with an Airbus A330 aircraft, out of the 59 A330s Air China currently operates, at least 22 of them are registered under operating leasing which is reaching its expiry date, Air China will have to retire them soon while finding replacement for them.

First Air China A350-900 take off

Although Air China has ordered 20 A350-900 aircraft from Airbus earlier this year, with the opening of Beijing's new daxing international airport, Air China will soon have new time slots opening up at PEK due to China Eastern and China Southern moving its operation to the new airport (PKX), in addition, Air China 'luckily' got 10 prosent slots share at the new airport as well.

So the question really comes down to, why won't Air China order more wide-body aircrafts? The A350 series is unlikely to be delivered in the short term and is now scheduled to be at least from 2020. The B787 series can't be delivered too quickly either. It's an unfortunate coincidence that now they even got one A330 less relating to news happened a few days ago.

On the 27th August, crew for Air China flight CA183 from Beijing to Tokyo found out that the cargo space in front of the aircraft was sending out smoke. the fire quickly spread after the plane caught fire. The upper part of the nose has been burned through and the structure of the aircraft may have been destroyed.

Air China A330 B-5958 @ PEK

The aircraft that caught fire in this warehouse was Air China A330-300 passenger aircraft with registration number B-5958, which was introduced in December 2014. According to its flight record, the aircraft operated a round-trip flight from Beijing to Singapore today and landed at Beijing at 15:00. According to Air China's r...