Swiss regional carrier SkyWork Airlines is to introduce a third weekday rotation on its popular Bern – London City route and will launch flights to the Croatian capital Zagreb this winter, an expansion that was first revealed last month to the audience of a special Route Exchange briefing at Routes Europe in Tallinn, Estonia. In a presentation to airport network development delegates, Tomislav Lang, Chief Executive Officer, SkyWork Airlines highlighted the dramatic recent growth of the airline and its planned network expansion.
As these popular Route Exchange sessions are confidential and restricted to just airport and tourism authority delegates we therefore up until now we have been unable to report on the airline’s growth strategy, but confirmation this week from the airline on its winter 2012/2013 plans means this information is now in the public domain.
SkyWork Airlines launched flights between Bern and London City in March 2011 initially with a daily weekday rotation and increasing demand resulted in the introduction of a second weekday frequency from November 2011. The third lunchtime rotation will be added from October 28, 2012 and will be operated using a Dornier 328 turboprop. According to official data from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) the airline carried 16,115 passengers on the route in the 2011 calendar year and it is now also exploring the idea of working with some established carriers at London City with a view to adding connecting flights in both the UK & Ireland.
“We are delighted to be taking the London route to three times daily, Monday to Friday. There was some cynicism when we first arrived on the route, especially as we were flying alongside the bigger, more well-known carriers, but we have received the warmest welcome and have won terrific loyalty for our services," said Tomislav Lang. "Our motto is Your Personal Way to Fly and business and leisure travellers have voted with their feet.”
Alongside the growth in London, SkyWork Airlines will launch additional flights to Croatia this winter with a twice weekly service to the country’s capital Zagreb. As Tomislav Lang, acknowledged to The HUB during Routes Europe, “it was only going to be a short period of time before we expanded our service to my homeland.” Croatian, Tomislav, joined the company in July 2008 having previously worked at Stuttgart Airport and with low-cost operator Germanwings and has masterminded a rebranding of the airline under new ownership.
With the addition of Zagreb to its network, SkyWork Airlines will this winter serve 12 scheduled destinations from Bern. Its other network points comprise Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belgrade, Berlin Schönefeld, Budapest, Hamburg, Cologne/Bonn, Palma de Mallorca, Rome and Vienna.
SkyWork Airlines is now in a period of relative consolidation following a rapid year of network growth. During the first five months of this year the Bern-based carrier handled just over 64,000, an almost four-fold increase over the corresponding period last year and it expects traffic to grow as it opens up a mini-hub at Bern Belp Airport to support transfer traffic between points on its network.
To find out more about SkyWork Airlines, view its Route Exchange profile on Routesonline here. This includes a Routes TV video highlighting its development.
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