Seventeen months after taking over Swiss International Air Lines as part of the AirTrust joint venture, Lufthansa recently announced it will acquire all remaining shares in the carrier effective July 1.

LH partnered in AirTrust with the Almea Foundation, which was founded by Swiss majority shareholders. AirTrust held the entirety of Swiss as of January 2006. Since then, the integration of the two airlines "has been realized quicker and more successfully than expected," according to LH, which is able to transfer Swiss from AirTrust now that negotiations regarding traffic rights have concluded.

LH said synergies generated by the merger in 2006 came to more than EUR200 million, a figure "far higher than originally planned." LH Chairman and CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber said, "The Swiss business model is a success. The airline is still heading for growth and progressing extremely well. Also in future, Swiss with its own brand identity will further develop its strengths and expand its locational advantage in the Swiss market."

The carrier's expansion plans include addition of three A340-300s over the next year, replacing two A330-200s. In addition, it announced that it will increase its six-times-weekly services from Zurich to Los Angeles, Johannesburg and Santiago (via Sao Paulo) to daily from the middle of next month. It also will offer a fifth weekly flight to Riyadh over the summer under a wet-lease agreement with PrivatAir.

On the regional front, Swiss is standardizing its Swiss European fleet further by disposing of its four Avro RJ85s. One already has been withdrawn. From November, Swiss European will operate an all-RJ100 fleet.