Swiss (airline) Announces London-Sion Feb'17

A snowHead

wiss have just announced that they will start trialling flights between London City (LCY) and Sion (SIR) in Switzerland February 2017. Sion airport is in the valley below Crans-Montana and Nendaz; only 30 minutes from Verbier; and the nearest to Zermatt etc. Although there's not a station at the airport, transfers to the mainline Sion station should be very short. I've flown to/from Sion on a charter from Gatwick to Verbier and it's a lot nearer than Geneva, and much quieter. My understanding is that the withdrawal of the Swiss Air Force from their base at Sion Airport lifts restrictions that made reliable commercial schedules difficult. As yet, this is just a shortish press release, and the Swiss website doesn't have Sion registered. I assume more details will emerge later in the year.

A snowHead

Theres a direct bus from Sion rail station (10 mins from airport) to Nendaz, good service have used it before......sounds good if and when the CHF/ £ rate makes it a viable proposition. wink

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Not wishing to put a downer on a new route - but just be aware it will have weather issues similar to Chambery. It is at a similar altitude, requires a steep descent angle (think London City), short runway and much special pilot training, so I suspect it will become little more than niche (and therefore quite expensive!).

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Agree re niche- also possibly expect it to be targeted at the Verbier enthusiasts who can't quite afford the full private jet but aren't particularly cost sensitive.

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London City is a fantastic airport — it's small, quick and very business orientated. You can hop-off the DLR and you are straight into the check-in zone. And they have folks in biz suits who greet you when you enter security! And you are not going to suffer flight delays due to other aircraft etc.

And remember that SWISS take your skis for free, and you can find discount codes for them and save money at www.quidco.co.uk and the like.

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@Dave of the Marmottes, you make a good point there, Verbier straight after work at Canary Wharf, bottle of fizz each on the plane set, guess they're not too fussed about price!!

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If it is foggy at Sion you will get diverted back to Geneva or even Zurich, @PeDaSp, you're right City is a great airport, last year however we got excited when BA started a 19h00 flight on a Friday, unfortunately practically every week it was delayed which meant missing the last train. One Friday I think my son beat the record and was off the plane and onto the train in four minutes to catch the last train. Personally I hope the Swiss trial works, they're starting from February next year.

After all it is free

@Swissie, I guess you mean that he arrived in London City Airport around 11pm to midnight, as that is the last DLR train at weekends? 4 mins is a great time!

You get diverted back to GVA in bad weather currently, because Sion lacks modern radar. According to the local press, it was never worth the cost of uprating because the Swiss Air Force had 'on demand' use and this wasn't compatible with regular scheduled commercial flights. With the Air Force vacating the place, it's now worth the investment, but it looks like they want Swiss to prove there's a demand before spending the money. At least, that's what the local press is reporting. If this went ahead, then Sion would be no more prone to closure than Geneva.

And while Swiss flights can be expensive, some of their GVA flights are pretty competitive. Moreover, if it meant that you didn't have to hire a car and there was a shuttle the 30 mins to Nendaz, Crans, Verbier etc. then that would compensate to a degree. I suspect that we'll have to wait a couple of seasons to see how it all pans out.

Of course, thanks to Brexit, the CHF:£ tourist rate is now down -16% compared to Christmas/New Year, which won't help. But then the €:£ rate is down -17% for the same period. It'll be interesting to see how both rates fare over the longer term.

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@PeDaSp, No Geneva Airport Smile

He said he was convinced he was going to be arrested running through the airport to the station. @LaForet, Also take into consideration the train fares at CHF52 each way (without a railcard)

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@Swissie, Thanks - understand now. There is a train station in Geneva airport. Rates don't have that much of an effect I think (within a certain margin). The EUR/GBP rate is back to where it was from Jan 2009 to Jan 2013 — so not a big deal really.

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A modern radar might help a little but it ain't going to move the mountains that necessitate the steep approach that leads to a high decision height for the pilot. Looking at an aerial picture also shows that extending the runway would involve removing quite a few houses.....

@chcoksaway All I can report is what the Airport PR were saying which is that it's the lack of radar that is the main problem, once the military leave. There was mention of needing STOL and our 'plane was a BAE 146 STOL: the landing seemed relatively gentle, but the takeoff was certainly dramatic! Swiss will be running an Embraer 190 (is that an STOL?) and 4 flights/day.

Our local small airfield in the UK has a number of private jet companies and just to see I made an enquiry about flying to Sion. They came back with a quote of £1100 which I initially thought was for the whole 'plane return. In fact, it was per person, one-way Shocked

You know it makes sense.

Embraer's are tiny but I don't think they are STOL

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I would think it's more to do with a lack of an Instrument Landing System [ILS]. This can enable auto or assisted landings in bad weather/visibility. I think the issue with Chambery for instance, is that it's ILS is not as advanced as Geneva — there are different "categories". Same would go for Sion I would think. All such airports must have local radar I would assume.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system

A snowHead

The E-190 is not really tiny, with about 100 seats or roughly the same size as A318. They mostly are quite comfortable with wider seats than the avaergae sardine can.

A snowHead

@PeDaSp Spot on and poor translation by me. I found the article from late 2013 reporting testing of a big Airbus A320 landing at Sion using the latest satellite (?) landing technology, which allows a much gentler approach along a different path in bad weather. Apparently this was just the first step in a protracted series of tests that seemed to have stalled (forgive the pun) because of continuing shared demand from the military flights. Subsequent articles also make reference to talks with easyJet and AirBerlin about using the more advanced landing mechanisms. I know from the newspaper that there's been a lot of friction between Sion and the military because for locals, the military jets are (very) noisy, and fly at all hours. The military responded that they fund a lot of the cost of equipment and mundane stuff like snow-clearing. There is a very strong private jet market using Sion, apparently, with the very wealthy preferring it to Geneva - slightly biased reporting, obviously, but interesting. Last year it reads like the military finally got fed up with all the criticism and decided to start to move out, taking their snow-clearing etc. equipment with them, to the consternation of the airport authorities who will now have to fund replacements. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out: if they can get someone like easyJet to fly form Gatwick then that would transform the route and make it a serious and attractive alternative to GVA.

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@LaForet, i thought (not paying that much attention) that withdrawal of military from Sion was just part of the general Swiss Army budget cuts.

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We really need 2planks here as a current airline pilot, but he is proabably very busy flying to theh Canaries and back in his 757 - so I will have a go in general terms (noting that a full explanation would crash the sH servers and my head

@LaForet, Not doubting you but I just wonder if the acronym soup of GLS (Global Landing System or any other number of names is actually going to get off the ground (or back to it wink

).The does not seem to be much appetite for it in the commercial world. Google searches reveal very little interest. Shocked

@PeDaSp, Sion does have an ILS - just a very high decision height (the height above the ground that a pilot must be able to see the runway). The ILS finishes in the town 2 nautical miles short of the runway, the pilot then has to jink round to the runway - hence the requirements for a 2500 ft cloudbase. There is another RNAV approach which flies more directly (if authorised) but still requires a 1500 ft cloudbase.

As for ILS in general you are correct about the differing categories but this is not the reason for the high decision heights at Chambery. In simple terms you have 3 categories with cloudbase and visibility limits (ie when Biggles takes over visually):
Cat 1 which gives a decision height of 200 feet and a minimum visibility of 550m - what is installed at Chambery.
Cat 2 which gives a decision height of 100 feet and a minimum visibility of 300m eg Grenoble
Cat 3 a decision height on the ground but with enough visibility to keep the thing straight, the zero-zero landing of tabloid writers (Geneva - but only on one runway).
There are 3 elements to an ILS, the equipment on the ground (and its calibration, requirements for sanitised areas on the ground and airfield lighting), the crews training and recurring qualification and the equipment on the aircraft (and its calibration) and guess what - as the Cat number increases costs ramp up. This is where accountants step in - a basic cost benefit analysis by the airports and the airlines. You may be surprised to hear quite a few of the UK bucket and spade airlines don't bother with Cat3 equipment and training. It is cheaper to delay or divert on those very few days of the year that are bad enough.
But the decision height at Chambery is much higher than a theoretical technical specification (500-800 feet depending on aircraft type), because the decision height must allow for the pilot to 'go around' safely and miss the surrounding terrain. The approach is Chambery is steeper than normal so there will be more of a delay before the aircraft starts to climb (ie it will dip below the decision height more than say an approach at Heathrow) and there are significant hills to overcome in the immediate vicinity. So here a Cat 2 or 3 would make little difference to flying operations. Its not a case of not investing it is Newtons Laws and Geology that have the final call!

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@chocksaway, Many thanks for that detailed and comprehensive explanation. I've often wondered why every airport and plane does not simply have CAT IIIb or whatever the latest iteration is.

I guess what is really needed is a comprehensive positioning and control system for planes. e.g.: A system that can fly a plane in a suitable 'go around' etc. But then I guess if the system is good enough, there should never be any go arounds! But it's doesn't work like that I know.

I've used Chambery a few times when on my way to Meribel. I've always been lucky; but I guess the worse that can happen is you get divert to Geneva anyway.

I think there is a whole story to do with flying out of Chambery as well. Something do to with fuel loads and weight etc. and missing the mountains. Please tell us about that if you can.

On a side note, automatic landing systems were first developed by the British to cope with all the bad weather up north!

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The worst than can happen flying to Chambery is a lot less convenient than diverting to Geneva.

You could be diverted to Turin. Or you could wait for hours at Manchester Airport as Chambery is shut and the alternatives are full and not accepting any more. So you eventually land about 11hours late!

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@PeDaSp, Thanks and you are right about Chambery. To deal with the question here a few basic tenets of aviation to help the explanation:

1. To fly an aircraft must reach a certain airspeed (airflow over the wing provides lift). Therefore you take off into wind as the wind blowing over the wing helps, ie your groundspeed is less.
2. The same works for landing, you land into wind so your speed over the ground is less eg if you had 20 kts of headwind and you need to land at 140kts airspeed your speed over the ground would be 120 kts - this is the speed the brakes and reverse thrust then have to deal with to stop you before you arrive at the carpark/lake/river etc.
3. The thrust a jet engine is capable of producing reduces with temperature and altitude.
4. During take off a scheduled airline flight in the event of an engine failure must be either at a speed where it can stop before the end of the runway or take off and clear any obstacles in the immediate area on the remaining engine (or engines on a 3 or 4 engine bird). It thus follows that a long runway is good as it allows longer to accelerate or stop - here a long runway would be, lets say, 9000 feet a short one 5000 feet.
5. At all times during the take off and landing phase the aircraft must maintain vertical separation from the terrain at all times.
To meet these criteria, a pilot has few options as power available is fixed. Basically weight is the issue, so he can burn down fuel to minimas to reduce weight or they can leave baggage and passengers behind.

For those that have flown in to Chambery, hopefully some things are already falling into place!

1. Chambery is at 768 feet above sea level, so we are already a little down on engine power.
2. The runway is only 6600 feet long, so under endowed.
3. The runway runs north south, to the south there is a large mountain very close by, to the north there is a lake with another large mountain at the northern end.
4. Take off is easy to deal with, you can't take off heading south as hitting a hill would be a real possibility with an engine failure. So the northerly is the only one authorised for take offs, which is fine unless there is a southerly wind, at which point the aircraft has to overcome the tailwind before it starts making headway towards the take off air speed, at which point the end of the runway is rapidly approaching, so weight may have to be reduced.
5. For approaches, heading south is OK but the hill to the north of the lake precludes a standard approach, hence the steeper one detailed above and the limits as described in my previous missive. However, if there is a northerly wind there is an option to approach the runway in a southerly direction, break off and fly a visual approach to the northerly runway by flying relatively close to the mountains if you are sat on the left. If on the right you get a good view through the Velux windows of the city Shocked

Clearly this can only be done out of cloud.
6. Luckily the winds are often negligible at Chambery, but the cloud base is an issue. But by taking off one way and landing the other (contrary to most airports), you have the potential for aircraft pointing at each other (never good) so this then means that take off and arrival movements are limited which reduces overall capacity.
7. In the summer the place is deserted, so the facilities are limited and a lot of the staff are temporary which means things may happen a bit slower.

But if it works it means a lot less time on the bus which is why tour ops like it (and I suspect the fees are cheaper than Geneva).

I flew Gatwick to Sion about 12-13 years ago for a week's holiday in Zermatt with Thomson Holidays. It was very convenient for this resort, it included the transfer bus as far as Tasch, and I imagine would save 90-120 minutes on the transfer time, more if the traffic around Lake Geneva is heavy.

The only downside was that the plane was calculated to be too heavy to take off from Sion to clear the mountains on the way back, so some had to volunteer to leave their baggage to follow them later. Maybe aircraft technology has improved since so it is less of an issue.

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I have flown into Sion and Europcar (based at Sion train station) were wiling to deliver the car to the airport as they did not have a car hire desk there - this may change I suppose if the flight continues.

Worth mentioning also that driving from Sion to Grimentz/Zinal etc is about a 45 minute drive as opposed to 2 hours and a bit from Geneva.

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@chocksaway, Thanks for that. You have passed your test to land at Chambery; you scored 12/12. Carry on. Very Happy

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The flights are going to operate on 4 Saturdays in February 2017:

LX2540 SIR-LCY 10:30-11:20 _____6_ ERJ-190 11 Feb 17 - 25 Feb 17
LX2541 LCY-SIR 11:50-14:40 _____6_ ERJ-190 04 Feb 17 – 18 Feb 17

The route will be operated by Helvetic Airways on behalf of Swiss, flights are now bookable via the Swiss website enter London (Lon) and Sion (Sir) and the appropriate dates in the search boxes.

Just short of £800 quid return, must be nice to be a city boy!

You know it makes sense.

An interesting experiment. Covering main school holidays and Sat-Sat transfers. £800 flights won't be the only expensive elements...

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I actually think this is very clever - I think that a lot of Swiss clients from London City are the London wealthy. This may include City traders but not that many. Sion is a big hub for private jets and it's reported that this market already dislikes using GVA to get to the likes of Verbier and Zermatt and is a big user of Sion. When I enquired, a private jet from Brighton airport was £1,100 each way per person, and you needed to fill the 8 seats to get that. So £800 is quite reasonable by comparison.

If this exercise is positive, then I daresay that it'll be extended and Sion Airport will make the case to easyJet et al that there's a wider market for cheaper fares using bigger 'planes. One carrot may be that whoever commits gets exclusive slots, so that if BA took it up, it would leave, say, easyJet out in the cold.

It wouldn't have to drop too much - say £300 to £400 return - before people might be prepared to pay the premium just to save the time. And that snot factoring in savings if you can get a transfer rather than hire a car etc.

A snowHead

[quote]
It wouldn't have to drop too much - say £300 to £400 return

You're right, that's a doable amount, but I think that £800 is way too much and if they are Sat - Sat, (and not early flights, so thats a day wasted) they won't appeal to the weekenders anyway, especially if BA still operate their London City to Geneva on Friday nights next season.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Paul Holroyd, radar can be curved? Wot, the Swiss Airforce are exploiting those nano black hole CERN keeps binning?

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Ha!! The PAR that the military use is what used be called a Talkdown. The Controller can see the aircraft and gives it radar headings and descent instructions. A great system but it requires a controller for each aircraft which only the military can afford!

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@under a new name, Well I have probably done a thousand precision approach radar (PAR) approaches and have never heard of a curved one. PAR is interpreted by a controller on the ground who tells you to go left and right and up or down to maintain the approach track It has similar limits to a Cat I ILS (200 ft cloudbase and 600m vis).

Having said that with a trainee controller I have done 'curved approaches' and appeared over a certain village in Lincolnshire rather than a nice 9000ft runway Shocked

I think there is a curved Microwave Landing System (MLS) in Alaska. MLS was supposed to replace ILS in the 80s but the rollout faltered in the US and was patchy across Europe.

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The MLS system never really took off. The future lies in GPS approaches. Sion would benefit from a LPV system (Localiser Performance with Vertical guidance. When combined with a HUD and Synthetic Vision it is an amazing system and can be flown to Cat 1 limits with Cat 11 a possibility.

Talking of Trainee Controllers have you ever flown a PAR at 450 knots?! We used to do this with new controllers and the results were very funny!

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@Paul Holroyd, Yip

RAF Valley, was and still is our fast jet training base, because of the requirement for a large number of training approaches they used to feed you in at 5 miles, which was fine for a Hawk at 120kts ish. So we decided to do a swept wing approach (ie wings stuck back in supersonic flying mode) for which the approach speed was 230 kts ish. Net result over the radio was "begin your descent now errrrr passing decision height - contact tower"!!

Oh and the hours of fun doing 'microphone failed approaches@ where you communicated with clicks of the transmit switch. "do you have a simulated emergency?". They then had to read a list of emergencies to ascertain the type of approach - its amazing how creative you can get.......

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Raf Valley!! I trained on Gnats there in the 70s. Shows my age. Hunters at Brawdy then 5 Sqn Binbrook.
Had a lot of fun in those days. Glad you are still managing to keep up the tradition!!

@Paul Holroyd, Were you still on 5 at the handover to the F3, if so I was a shiny abo at the parade!!

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@chocksaway, exactly. You need a pretty powerful gravity source to curve radar...

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Swiss (airline) Announces London-Sion Feb'17

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