Bombardier Commercial Aircraft delivered the first C Series aircraft — a CS100 — to launch operator Swiss International Air Lines on 29th June. The aircraft is scheduled to enter service with SWISS on July 15, 2016 with its maiden commercial flight taking passengers from Zurich to Paris-Charles de Gaulle. The CS100 seats 125 passengers in a two-class layout, including 16 seats in Business. Swiss currently has orders for 15 CS100s, along with 15 of the 145-seat CS300 variant.

SWISS will gradually replace its fleet of 20 Avro RJ100s (97 seats) with the C Series aircraft. Additional C Series aircraft will be used to replace other existing aircraft as well as permit moderate future growth. The CS100 aircraft will fly to Manchester, Prague and Budapest with other destinations - Warsaw, Brussels, Nice, Stuttgart, Hanover, Milan, Florence and Bucharest being added.

Route-proving exercises using a fully configured aircraft on the airline’s European network were completed in March. The trials, operated from the airline’s home base in Zurich, included over 30 city-pair flights in European cities over a three-week long period.

The European route-proving program followed one conducted last year across North America that included more than 35 cities.