Skyguide with better figures again
Swiss air navigation service provider Skyguide has closed the first half of the year with improved figures and expects a good financial result for 2025. The Virtual Center strategy has been adjusted.
Skyguide had monitored and accompanied over 800,000 IFR flights by the end of the summer vacations. In the first eight months of the year, air traffic in Switzerland increased again slightly compared to 2019, particularly at Zurich Airport. A punctuality rate of 95.6% was achieved in the summer season, as CEO Alex Bristol emphasized in Zurich.
Is the Virtual Center a bottomless pit or a success story? At the media conference, Chairman of the Board of Directors Aldo Schellenberg clearly leaned towards the latter. Break-even will be reached by the end of 2027, and then Virtual Centre will also be a success story in terms of budget. With regard to the high costs, the CEO pointed out that more than half of them would have had to be paid for by modernizing the existing systems anyway.
Contrary to the original plan (which was delayed due to various factors), the program is due to be completed in 2027. By this time, the flight plan data systems of Zurich/Dübendorf and Geneva should be harmonized and further projects that enable location-independent management of Swiss airspace should be initiated. To this end, a new CTO has been appointed, Götz Ardey, who will take up his post on September 1.
Despite ambitious projects such as the European Single Sky, air traffic control in Europe suffers from incredible fragmentation and outdated technological components. Skyguide's management emphasized that Switzerland is much further ahead in many areas with the Virtual Centre. In recent years, the existing system in Switzerland has also proven to be prone to failure, which has taken up a lot of human resources.
The TMA Zurich redesign introduced in spring 2025 is working, said COO Urs Lauener on request. After an introductory phase with a reduced VFR offering, it could also be used for the next ten to 15 years.