SWISS carried 2,950,685 passengers in the first three months of 2009, 1.6% fewer than the 2,999,517 of the prior-year period. The impact of the present economic crisis on SWISS's passenger business was particularly strong on the intercontinental front, where first-quarter seat load factor fell 4.3 percentage points from the 81.0% of 2008 to 76.7%. Seat load factor for SWISS's European network slipped 1.8 percentage points from 67.6% to 65.8%. SWISS was swift to modify its production in the first quarter of 2009 in anticipation of weakened demand. As a result, production for the period was only slightly above its prior-year level at 32 351 flights (2008: 31 943).

On intercontinental routes, traffic volumes declined 3.0% in revenue-passenger-kilometer (RPK) terms, on available-seat-kilometer (ASK) capacity that was 2.5% higher than the prior-year period.

On the European network, first-quarter ASK production was a 5.2% increase on January-to-March 2008. Traffic volume was also raised, with total RPKs a 2.4% improvement on the prior-year period.

The airfreight business of Swiss WorldCargo suffered a tangible first-quarter decline. Cargo load factor by volume amounted to 66.8%, 18.4 percentage points down on the 85.2% of the prior-year period.

The effect of the present economic crisis was felt even more strongly in SWISS's March traffic figures than in its cumulative first-quarter results. SWISS carried 1,066,121 passengers for the month (compared to 1,119,287 in March 2008), and the system wide seat load factor of 74.4% was a 6.7-percentage-point decline on the 81.1% of the prior-year period. On the cargo front, the 19-percentage-point decline in load factor by volume broadly mirrored the result for the full first quarter.

Key figures for SWISS scheduled services, 1st quarter 2009

' Q1 2009 Q1 2008 Change
Passengers carried 2,950,685 2,999,517 - 1.6%
Flights operated 32,351 31,943 + 1.3%
'
Available seat-kilometers (million)''' 8,501 8,223 + 3.4%

Revenue passenger-kilometers (million)

 6,223 6,316 - 1.5%
Seat load factor 73.2% 76.8% - 3.6 pts.