SWISS Swaps A220s for Bigger A320neos on Its Geneva-Heathrow Route

On August 17, 2026, SWISS said it will replace two Airbus A220-300s with two larger A320neos at its Geneva base, starting with the summer 2027 schedule.

35 More Seats a Flight

The A220-300 seats 145 passengers, while the A320neo carries 180, a net gain of 35 seats on every flight. SWISS said the larger jets will fly primarily on the Geneva-London Heathrow route, calling it one of the airport’s most in-demand connections.

SWISS CEO Jens Fehlinger said the move “sends a strong signal for our Geneva base,” adding the airline wants to “secure our position in Geneva for the long term.” The two displaced A220-300s will move to SWISS’s main Zurich hub.

A Complicated Year for SWISS’s A220 Fleet

The swap comes as SWISS manages a squeezed A220 fleet elsewhere in its network. In October 2025, the airline grounded all nine of its smaller A220-100s for about 18 months to free up scarce Pratt & Whitney GTF engines for its larger A220-300s, Simple Flying reported.

SWISS has also leased extra A220-300s from airBaltic to cover the gap. That same GTF engine shortage recently forced airBaltic to cut its own A220 fleet by a third under a separate rescue plan.

This Follows a Round of Geneva Cutbacks

The capacity boost comes less than a year after SWISS trimmed Geneva service elsewhere. For the 2026 summer schedule, the airline dropped five nonstop routes from the airport: Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Oslo, and Munich, the last of which is now flown by parent carrier Lufthansa instead, SWISSinfo reported.

A SWISS spokesperson said at the time that the airline needed to “optimise the use of our fleet between Zurich and Geneva due to a lack of resources.” After the cuts, Geneva was left with 29 short-haul destinations plus one route to New York.

Putting bigger jets on Geneva’s busiest surviving route suggests SWISS is now favoring depth on its strongest links over a wide destination list, even as its overall Geneva network stays smaller than it was a year ago.

SWISS said it will finalize the rest of its summer 2027 schedule in the coming weeks. The A220-300 remains part of the airline’s long-term fleet plan even as this one route moves to the larger A320neo, part of a 25-jet A320neo-family order the airline has been receiving since 2020 to replace its older A320s.