Even for long durations

Swiss ambassadors must fly economy

Zurich Airport(Bild: AFP/Fabrice COFFRINI)

The Swiss Foreign Ministry has to save money and has therefore set its sights on the flights of its employees. In future, they will have to fly economy instead of business class. This affects ambassadors and state secretaries, for example, a spokesperson said on Friday.

For very long flights to conferences, the Foreign Ministry advises arriving one day before the start of the conference in order to be able to recover from any stresses and strains of the journey. Exceptions will only be permitted in rare cases and on request. The ministry expects to save around 1.5 million Swiss francs per year (equivalent to 1.6 million euros) by switching to economy flights.

Until now, federal employees have been entitled to business class for flights lasting more than nine hours or for connecting flights lasting more than eleven hours in total. In future, this will also apply to other ministries. The Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis had proposed the switch to economy for all employees, but was unable to get his way.

Foreign Minister works on an airplane
He himself is only setting a good example to a limited extent. Cassis does without first class on scheduled flights and flies business. He has to work on the plane and is usually ready for action as soon as he arrives, said the ministry spokesperson. Therefore, economy class is out of the question for him. When traveling to several destinations or to destinations that cannot be reached directly, Cassis and other members of the government usually use their own aircraft anyway.