Reporting by Swiss public broadcaster SWI swissinfo.ch revealed that, despite intense demand signals, a combined 70 seats on Edelweiss’s two 7 March repatriation services stayed empty. The shortfall has renewed debate over Switzerland’s reliance on the Travel Admin registration system and the ‘first-come, first-served’ method for distributing scarce capacity. Operational data show 19 no-shows on the Muscat–Zurich leg and 51 on the Salalah–Hurghada–Zurich rotation. Airline officials attribute the discrepancy to rapidly changing airport security perimeters, last-minute immigration exit-rules in Oman and the inability of some travellers to transit closed highways in the United Arab Emirates. Corporate-travel managers say the incident exposes a coordination gap between government messaging and ground reality. While the FDFA urges citizens to be “self-reliant”, airlines require firm passenger manifests well ahead of departure to secure permits. Some firms have begun employing local logistics providers to shepherd employees across checkpoints and supply on-site SIM cards so passengers can receive real-time gate changes. Edelweiss maintains that splitting its scheduled weekend rotation into two flights was the quickest way to inject capacity, but acknowledges that next-day or rolling manifests might be more effective if further sorties are approved. Aviation lawyers add that empty seats undermine cost-recovery calculations and could discourage carriers from volunteering aircraft unless compensation frameworks are clarified. Industry associations are calling for a clearer public-private playbook that includes advance pooling of corporate demand, pre-cleared passenger lists and streamlined visa-on-arrival waivers for connecting third-country nationals caught up in the crisis.
Source: SWI swissinfo.ch
