While tourists about to embark on an adventure to the Alps like traveling on airlines with names like Swiss International Air Lines and Austrian Airlines, both of those are actually part of the larger Lufthansa Group (DLAKF) .
Germany’s flagship carrier acquired each in 2009 and 2005, respectively, while there is also Edelweiss Air — the Swiss subsidiary was formed in 2002 as a separate charter airline for holiday destinations but was eventually also acquired by Lufthansa.
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Since Lufthansa started pumping money into the airline, it invested in a number of Airbus (EADSF) planes and developed a network of seasonal flights from Zurich to holiday destinations such as Italy’s Bari, Morocco’s Agadair and Turkey’s Bodrum. The main audience is Swiss vacationers going on winter and summer holidays.
‘Delighted to add Seattle as our latest destination’
This week, Edelweiss announced that it is launching two new North American routes from Zurich in 2025: one to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and another to Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ).
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The Seattle route will launch on June 2, 2025 and run twice a week on Mondays and Saturdays. The Zurich-Seattle flight will depart at 1 p.m. to arrive at 2:50 p.m. local time while the return flight will leave at 4:25 p.m. and arrive at 11:45 a.m. the next day.
"We are delighted to add Seattle as our latest destination in the USA," Edelweiss CEO Bernd Bauer said in a statement on the new route. "This nonstop service offers a convenient link to Zurich, at the heart of Europe, while also bringing a significant number of Swiss travelers to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.”
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These are some of the other Edelweiss routes to launch recently
On July 25, 2025, Edelweiss will launch a second new route between Zurich and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Both routes will run on an Airbus A340-300 with capacity for 214 passengers across economy, economy plus and business fare classes and are meant to serve a growing market of Swiss and other European tourists looking to explore new parts of North America as well as the usual Switzerland-seeking crowd.
“We’re delighted to welcome Edelweiss as our newest airline partner and to add Zurich to our ever-growing list of transatlantic routes,” Halifax International Airport Authority President and CEO Joyce Carter said in a statement. “With a flight time of approximately seven hours, we can’t wait to welcome more Swiss and European visitors to Nova Scotia next summer.”
Edelweiss has been eyeing expansion and, in the last year, expanded its service between Zurich and Tampa to four times a week while also preparing to launch a new flight to Tunisia at the end of 2024 after already starting new service to different parts of Egypt and Oman earlier in the year.
“The winter flights to Tampa Bay in Florida, which were introduced last year, will also be offered twice a week this winter. Tampa Bay will therefore be served all year round,” the airline said in announcing the new routes. “The number of flights to holiday destinations in the Caribbean remains unchanged. As in the previous winter season, Cancún will be served three times a week, Havana once a week and Punta Cana twice a week non-stop from Zurich.”
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