CONTENTS

Back to part 1: Two hundred tonnes take off

By 15:46, two hours and 13 minutes after taking off, Swiss 14 Echo has received its clearance to follow North Atlantic Track D at 38,000 feet. Covolan and Schroeder would have preferred a thousand feet higher: the thinner the air, the less fuel the engines consume. But Flight Level 390 is ­already taken. The sky isn’t quite the limit up here above the Atlantic: Swiss 14 Echo is flying on a 63-lane highway which is relaid every day depending on the winds: the North Atlantic tracks between Ireland and Canada consist of seven parallel lines labelled A to G, each accommodating nine flight levels.

On the morning of today’s depart­ure the dispatcher, who is respon­sible for planning the flight’s route, calculated the costs and lengths of 14 ­possible routes from Zurich to New York. He then selected the quickest and most cost-effective and submitted it to Eurocontrol in Brussels at 06:58. The route chosen led from Waypoint Dogal off the Irish coast along North Atlantic Track D to Waypoint Steam beyond the coast of Canada. A flight on this route, the computer had told him, would take eight hours and four minutes and cost 40,870 francs in fuel and route charges. The worst option, a northerly routing on Track A, would have meant 25 minutes more flying time and 2,705  francs more costs.

Out of the cockpit window, the odd wisps can occasionally be seen of the contrail of the flight 100 kilometres ahead. The aircraft itself is not in view. The neighbouring tracks to the north and south are also too far away for any visual ­contact. Each track is 60 miles (111 kilometres) apart. The only aircraft the cockpit crew will see from time to time are those flying 1,000 feet above and below them. When they do, they’ll photograph one another and exchange e-mail ­addresses by radio, so they can send each other the pictures.      

Half an hour out over the open sea, Swiss 14 Echo loses VHF radio contact as usual with Shanwick Oceanic Control. From this distance, Schroeder and Covolan can only contact the centre via a crackly short-wave connection. The flight has disappeared from the ground radar, too, though it continues to report its position by sending regular automatic signals via satellite to the ground. Airbus HB-JHA “Schwyz” has left terra firma far behind, and is heading into the loneliness ahead. The radio calls from other flights which croak sporadically over the cockpit’s speakers are the only reminder that an armada of aircraft is currently crossing this vast expanse of water.

The cockpit windows offer a breathtaking vista of the blue expanse ­below and the infinite sky above. “Sometimes I see myself from outside, this tiny being steering this monster of a machine,” Covolan confesses. The sentiment is a distant echo of the exhilaration with which aviation’s pioneers conquered the air. “A liberating and ­uplifting unbinding from all the gravity of the earth spread through my senses, and I felt as if I was guiding not only my aeroplane but my destiny itself,” wrote Swiss pilot Walter Mittelhol­zer back in 1917. “Not through any excess of spirit but through the simple need to give rein to my un­bridled joy, I began to sing a song, though this was promptly buried by the engine noise.”

It was two years later that the North Atlantic was first conquered by a non-stop flight. British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown took off in an open-cockpit aircraft from Newfoundland on 14 June 1919, battled storms, hail and snow, nearly froze to death and almost crashed into the sea before landing exhausted in Ireland 16 hours later. They were fêted as heroes and knighted by King George V. Eight years later, the feat was first accomplished solo by the American  Charles Lindbergh.

Having had their food and drink and been to the toilet, the passengers on LX 14 settle down for the remaining five-and-a-half hours. For Jutta Inhelder, who’s been working in the cabin for the last 30 years, it’s proving a pleasant flight, free of any “unrulies”, as misbehaving travellers are referred to. “Swiss” had 349 incidents with passengers last year. Eighty-nine of them had drunk too much, a further 89 smoked in the toilet (earning a 500-franc fine) and 20 let an animal loose in the cabin. In many cases, a stern look from Inhelder is enough to calm matters down. But she has also had occasion to appeal for “strong men” among the passengers to subdue a particularly rambunctious traveller.

If it happened today, she might well turn for help to the man in 25 K, with his pecs clearly contoured beneath his Manchester United shirt. He’s a devoted fan who was ­himself a professional footballer in Israel and now works as a diamond dealer in New York. And he travels to Europe ­every few weeks to watch his team play.         

Jutta Inhelder is well aware of the strange behaviour that flying can provoke. Once, on a flight from Zur­ich to New York, she was confronted by a naked passenger: he had torn off his clothes in the ­toilet and was rampaging through the cabin. With the help of the security personnel who travel incognito aboard “Swiss” flights, the man was overpowered and was restrained in a seat for the rest of the journey, his modesty scantily covered by a spare in-flight blanket. If a passenger proves uncontrollable by any other means, the cabin crew are also empowered to use the plastic handcuffs that are carried on board. If they do so, though, they must also place a small pair of pliers in the pocket of the seat behind, to ensure that the ­restrainee can be quickly freed should an emergency occur.

Doctors specialising in aviation medicine suspect that it is the blend of the anonymity and the confined space aboard an aircraft that provokes such extreme behaviour. In many cases drugs, alcohol or a fear of flying can also play a part, alone or in combination. “Basically, virtually anything that happens to people on the ground can also happen on board,” Inhelder explains. “You’ll sometimes find a couple kissing who didn’t even know each other before we took off.” She’s also had to intervene in First Class and “stop a couple who seemed to have become totally unaware of ­everything around them”.

One of Inhelder’s colleagues experienced a birth on board. It was a young African woman, travelling between Zurich and Salzburg.  Pregnant women are permitted to fly without the need for any doctor’s approval up to four weeks before their due date. And this birth went smoothly, too. In fact,  the questions surrounding a birth are often a lot more complex than the event itself. What is the newborn’s place of birth? And what nationality are they entitled to? Article 19, Paragraph 2b of the Ordinance on the Commander’s Rights and Obligations does require the captain to record the ­“geographical place of birth”; but anyone with “52°N 40°W” written in their passport might face a few problems with i­mmigration officers later in life.

In view of this, the United Nations recommends that any child born aboard an aircraft should have the place of the aircraft’s registration as their place of birth. As usual with such recommendations, not all countries comply. For some, the place of birth is the first airport the aircraft sub­sequently lands at. The child’s nationality will primarily ­depend on their parents’, of course; whether they may also be entitled to further citizenship through the circumstances of their birth depends on the local laws of the country concerned.

Many of our flight’s Economy Class passengers have put their headphones on and are staring motionless at their screens. A few stretch out across a free centre row. A hush falls over the cabin. The young woman in 32 A is sitting with  her laptop: she’s writing a travel blog for a New Jersey radio station. Last month took her to Barbados, New York, Paris, Lucerne and Zurich. Clearly familiar with the ins and outs of flying, she’s putting cream on her hands again. Flight ­attendants are also told in their training to apply moistur­is­ing cream regularly to their hands, in view of the dry cabin air. And to drink water, too: at least two decilitres an hour.

“Entering Etops!” calls First Officer Schroeder at 16:12 ­after consulting his navigation screen. Swiss 14 Echo is now over an hour’s flying time from Shannon, its nearest airport. As a result, it must meet certain criteria known as Etops – ­extended-range twin-engine operational performance standards – to continue its flight. Engine failures were not uncommon with the piston engines of earlier days, so ­commercial propeller aircraft were not permitted to ­operate more than an hour’s flight from the nearest airport – a rule that resulted in inefficient zigzag routings across the Atlantic.

Jet engines are far more reliable. With the arrival of the jets, over 100 cockpit instruments were made redundant at a stroke. The one-hour rule was abolished for three-engined jets in the 1950s and for twinjets in 1985. Today, an aircraft type is approved for Etops operations provided it has fewer than three engine malfunctions per 100,000 ­operat­-ing hours.

As its two Rolls-Royce power plants propel it at 880 kilo­metres an hour towards North America’s shores, our Airbus A 330-300 is permitted to stray up to three hours’ flight away from the nearest airport, the precise maximum depending on the current wind conditions. Even if one of its engines were to fail, our flight could easily divert to Keflavik in Iceland on the remaining one. As a further Etops safety precaution, the oil on the two engines may never be changed or topped up at the same time.

A young flight attendant rolls the duty-free trolley through the cabin. She will earn a 2 per cent commission on every item she sells, a perk that may add some 200 francs to her monthly ­salary. A Moscow or a Tokyo flight can generate as much as 1,000 francs. Experience shows flights to the USA to be lesser money-spinners. And business today is very flat: two passengers take a look at the watches but opt not to indulge. Rosa Schupbach in 4A will later decide to buy a bottle of Chivas Regal, though.

16:30 and the in-flight service is finished. In the galley, a flight attendant pours the remaining water into a siphon, from which a pipe extends out through the fuselage. The outlet valve is kept free from freezing by the aircraft’s Ice Protection Control Unit, one of 91 computers carried on board. In Business Class, each passenger is offered a small bottle of mineral water together with the forms to be completed for US immigration. Then maître de cabine von Gunten turns off the cabin lighting and asks the passengers at the windows to lower their blinds. In Switzerland it’s 16:30, in New York it’s 10:30 – hardly bedtime in either location. But in these hours between a Zurich afternoon and a Big Apple morning, the flight’s pulse slows, the engines’ hum has a strangely soothing effect.     

Most of the Business Class passengers elect to stretch out and put their seats in the “bed” position: the backrest reclines, the seat cushion moves forward, the footrest comes up and the whole combines to make a truly horizontal bed. “Swiss” sees the lie-flat credentials of the new Airbus’s Business Class seat as a key selling point. The airline has only been able to offer it by staggering the seating arrangement, providing a tunnel between the two front seats for the legs of the occupant of the seat behind.      

New aircraft are bought empty: the interior of today’s A 330-300 was entirely “Swiss’s” affair. Like composing some ­giant puzzle, the designers of the new “Swiss” Business Class cabin shifted the seating around on their computers within the 50-by-5.5-metre tube until they had fitted in 183 Eco­nomy, 45 Business and 8 First Class seats – 30 more than in the predecessor A330-200 which is five metres shorter, i.e. 15 per cent more seats for the same costs. All aircraft seats are rigorously tested before they are certificated for use. They are set on fire, hurled against walls, subjected to forces of up to 16 g and put through the equivalent of 10,000 cycles. A seat that can withstand all this doesn’t come cheap: “Swiss’s” new Business Class seat, the airline claims, costs as much as a mid-range car.

For the first time since breakfast at home this morning, the cabin crew now have a chance to eat. With their trays on their knees, the flight attendants make themselves as comfortable as they can in the Business Class galley. One elects to eat her vegetables from a standing position. She’d rather be sitting next to her boyfriend. He’s in Business Class. But when she brings him a glass of water, she duly observes “Swiss’s” Staff Travel Regulations and maintains the same friendly distance that she shows ­every other passenger.       

Once they’ve eaten, the flight attendants have the chance for a little rest, though this is occasionally punctuated by the small blue light that comes on whenever a passenger presses the attendant call button. This time it’s the man in 25 E, asking for his fifth (small) bottle of red wine. Claudine von Gun­ten takes the opportunity to discuss who will do what on the return eastbound flight. In Econ­omy Class, the flight attendants circulate with a large bottle of mineral water and a stack of plastic cups every half-hour. In First, three ­passengers lie immobile in their comfortable beds, deep in their sleep.

Covolan and Schroeder are wide awake. The cockpit receives only fresh air, to ensure that the pilots don’t get tired. For a long time, there was a strict rule here: nobody in the cockpit ever closed their eyes. Co­volan recalls one captain being dismissed because he fell asleep. Today, if a pilot feels sleepy, “controlled napping” is allowed. Not for more than 40 minutes, though, as that’s when a deeper sleep sets in, as was discovered by a study among pilots published by NASA in 1994. And there is indeed an alarm clock among all the cockpit instruments that can be set precisely to this end.   

LX 14 is now at 30 degrees west, in the middle of the Atlantic. As he always does at this point, Covolan adjusts his watch to New York time. There’s not much to do in the cockpit right now, and it’s suddenly easier to see why ­coping with monotony is a key talent for any commercial pilot. In former times, Covolan and Schroeder would have had ­further cockpit company: a radio operator, a navigator and a flight engineer. The radio operator would send his ­messages in Morse code, the navigator tracked the flight’s progress (by the stars at night), and the flight engineer monitored the various on-board systems. Today, the aircraft’s electronics can do so much themselves that the two pilots can handle the rest. 

The development of the autopilot and other technical aids has been a boon to aviation. But growing automation has brought its problems, too. Pilots nowadays do more monitoring than flying. Since Covolan engaged the autopilot shortly after take-off, he hasn’t touched the sidestick, and he’s not likely to again until just before the landing at JFK. When he started his career in a Douglas DC-9, it was cables that led from the control column via the hydraulics to the aircraft’s control surfaces. When he moved them, he could feel the resistance of the air outside. Today, a command to make a left turn goes from the sidestick to five computers, which pass it on to the hydraulics. Covolan doesn’t even know what control surfaces are adjusted here: that’s ­de­cided by the computers.

Many pilots have mixed feelings about the new technology. It often eases their workload; but it always takes them a ­further step away from tried-and-trusted practices. When, in the early years of commercial air transport, one Scottish airline procured its first aircraft with retractable landing gear, one of its captains refused to use the new function, stating: “I’ve never retracted my undercarriage in my life, and I don’t intend to start doing so now!” And as far back as 1939, French pilot and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (see Contoured - Saint-Exupéry: pilot, poet, pioneer) was already complaining about the technological advances that have gradually turned the aviators of yore, those “magnificent men in their flying machines”, into today’s pilots: “Everything is so well integrated now. Pilots, engin­eers and radio operators no longer embark on adventures, they huddle away in some airborne laboratory. They answer to their instruments, not to the course of the landscape beneath them. The radio man dutifully writes down his figures in the light of his lamp, the engineer marks the results on his chart and the pilot makes the adjustments to his course. That’s how crews operate today: they don’t even notice they’re flying.”    

The new A 330-300 has seen the last three mechanical instruments banished from the cockpit. The back-up mech­anical artificial horizon, altitude and speed indicators have been replaced by a single electronic instrument. So the standby compass mounted on the window’s centre strut is the sole reminder now of the times when every cockpit was one vast mechanical contraption. Today, pilots are man­agers and monitors of complex computer systems.       

In the past, the key question in flight operations was: how much can the pilot be expected to do? Today it’s how little. When the “Swiss” captain who performed HB-JHA’s first revenue flight was wished all the best beforehand three weeks ago, “Thanks: we’ll try not to touch anything,” was his dry reply. Some people see the growing contrast ­between normal operations and any emergency that may arise as one of the prime vulnerabilities of aviation today. Covolan sees their point: “You have to switch from total monotony to 200 per cent application in seconds,” he ­explains.

Smoke in the cockpit or a sudden loss of pressure are the worst-case scenarios. “All the warning lights would go on and all the audio warnings would sound at once: it would be like a funfair up here.” Covolan continues. “It’d all be pretty hectic, too: we’d need to get down lower as quickly as possible, and that would mean making a really steep des­cent.” He should know – he’s experienced it twice.

At moments like that, the commander will often hand the controls to the first officer. This may seem counterintuitive; but the greater experience the captain has is reflected less in his flying skills and more in his ability to maintain an effective overview and set the right priorities. It’s a fact that more accidents occur when the captain is at the controls.                

If an emergency descent were initiated, passenger oxygen masks would fall out of the ceiling. Unlike the pilots’ supply, which comes from pressurised cy­linders, the oxygen for the cabin is chemically created in wine-bottle-sized tanks above each seat row in a process that is triggered when the passengers reach for their masks. Carrying pure oxygen for everyone on board would be too complicated, and the cylinders required would add too much weight. The oxygen provided is sufficient for 15 minutes – time enough to bring any aircraft anywhere in the world down to 14,000 feet or 4,300 metres. Well, ­almost anywhere: some trans-­Hi­malayan routes can only be flown by aircraft carrying an hour’s worth of oxygen for every passenger aboard.         

The view from the cockpit is somewhat surreal. With nothing for the eye to fix on in the dark blue of the sea or the light blue of the sky, the aircraft seems to be standing still. Yet the screen shows a constant Mach 0.82, or 880 kilometres an hour. Maintaining the correct speed is vitally important. If the aircraft is too slow or too fast, the airflow over the wings will separate from the surface and the aircraft will stall – lose its lift and fall. The higher an aircraft flies, the smaller the range between these maximum and minimum speeds (the altitude at which this maximum and minimum converge is wryly known as “Coffin Corner”). At his current altitude, Covolan would run into problems if he flew just 60 kilometres an hour faster than his present speed.

And how do crews learn how to cope with such dramatic situations? That’s where the simulator comes in. Covolan was instructing in one two days prior to today’s flight, replicating the loss of speed indicators, making engines explode and even having a bomb blow up. Few pilots will encounter such problems; but if they do, they will know that the “least-risk bomb location” is by the right rear door, and that once it has been placed there the bomb should be surrounded by a wall of baggage and wet towels.

As is the case with all commercial airline pilots, most of Covolan’s work consists in preparing for eventualities that are unlikely to happen. At the same time, the simulator is only used to practise scenarios which do not depend on luck: there is no point in merely frustrating the pilots. That’s why, for example, ditchings are never simulated. But after the spectacular recent landing of a US Airways Airbus A 320 in New York’s Hudson River, Covolan decided to give it a try. After normal simulator training was completed, he put an experienced crew in and failed both their engines on them shortly after take-off from Geneva. They managed to ditch safely in a simulated Lac Léman.  

Our flight still has half its journey ahead of it, but for “Swiss’s” Rev­enue Management it’s history already: LX 14 of 12 May 2009 is a ­perishable commodity which lost all its remaining saleable value as soon as the doors were closed. The 80 members of “Swiss’s” Revenue Management sit in a no-nonsense building from which they help the company strive to post a black-ink annual result. In the airline business, that’s no easy task: the world’s air carriers suffered an aggregate loss of 10 billion dollars last year ­according to the International Air Transport  Association (IATA), the industry’s umbrella organisation. And thanks to the financial crisis, bookings for the first quarter of 2009 were down almost 10 per cent in Economy Class and as much as 20 per cent in Business and First. With margins as narrow as they are at present, every single seat is fiercely contested.

When air transport was still a regulated industry, its fares were all agreed and fixed under IATA’s overall control. In memory of these times, “Swiss” has the last IATA ticket, dating from 1995, on display in a plexiglass block in the foyer of its Revenue Management premises. As recently as the early 1990s, when Swissair outsourced its revenue management to India, every Swissair flight from Zurich to Mumbai took off with 300 to 400 kilos of flight ticket coupons in its hold. Even “Swiss’s” conditions of carriage are no longer issued in paper form. Not that the switch has made them any more concise. The definitions alone stretch to three of the document’s 23 pages. For anyone unaware of who they are, for instance, a passenger is defined as “any person, except members of the crew, carried or to be carried in an aircraft pursuant to a Ticket (see also definition for ‘you’, ‘your’ and ‘yourself’)”. The document’s 19 articles cover every conceivable detail, such as that guide dogs are carried free in addition to the normal free baggage allowance (8.9.3), or that while the in-flight use of radio-controlled toys is pro­hibited, heart pacemakers are permitted (11.2).
 
Ask the price of a Zurich–New York ticket today and you’ll get almost as many answers as the seats still available. ­“Dynamic pricing” is why: the fares are recalculated every day depending on demand. Sometimes it’s best to book early, sometimes it’s better to wait. Dynamic pricing is an airline’s answer to the dilemma it faces when 50 travellers are willing to pay 200 francs for a flight while 50 more will only pay 100 francs. If it sets the fare at 200 francs, it will earn 50 times this, or 10,000 francs for the flight. If it sets it at 100 francs, it will earn 100 times this, or 10,000 francs again. But if it can get each group to pay what they are willing to, it will sell 50 seats at 200 francs and 50 at 100 francs and ­generate total revenue of 15,000 francs – a 50 per cent improvement.

It’s a vital calculation. In 2000, Crossair carried 6.29 million passengers. If it had sold every other passenger their ticket for just 10 francs more, that loss of 25.2 million francs would have been transformed into a 6.25-million- franc profit. The cheapest regular round-trip ticket for today’s Zurich–New York flight costs 545 francs, while the most expensive was offered for 13,793 francs. Needless to say, the budget traveller has to put up with certain disadvantages. They cannot rebook, and they must spend a Saturday night at their destination before returning home (weekday flights are generally more expensive because they tend to be used by the business community). They also need a little luck in booking at just the right moment. Bargains aren’t an everyday occurrence: sometimes they’re offered early, sometimes close to departure day.

The occupant of seat 37 C is flying for even less than 545 francs. Strictly speaking, he’s not entitled to a seat. But strictly speaking, he isn’t sitting in it, either: he’s lying. He’s only one-and-a-half months old. When his parents bought him his ticket, he wasn’t even around. Six weeks before he was born, his future parents decided to go and show the new bearer of the family name to the relatives in New York: the 599-franc online offer was too good to resist. So they booked for two adults and an infant under two (the fact that Passenger 3 had yet to emerge on this earth was no problem here). When he saw the same tickets offered for just 545 francs the next day, Dad-to-Be cancelled the first reservation (as can be done without penalty within 24 hours) and booked at the lower fare instead. “It’s still too much,” he feels, “especially for the little one: 325 francs and he doesn’t even get his own seat. Luckily the flight’s half-empty, so he can have one anyway.”         

Every flight is a carefully organised and precisely calculated economic event. Flight analyst Monika van Lier, who is ­responsible for North America flights, got the computers to calculate 342 days prior to departure what “Swiss” could expect from LX 14 of 12 May 2009 in revenue terms, based on experience of similar flights on this weekday and at this time of year. The system made its projections.

“Whether we’re in an economic crisis or not, special ­Zurich–New York fares are part and parcel of the May fare mix,” van Lier explains. The system is constantly fed the ­latest fares from “Swiss’s” competitors, advance booking figures are regularly assessed and, in close consultation with Sales, the first May promotions are devised months in advance. Six weeks before departure, the special offers increase and the fares are adjusted again, depending on the latest booking trends.

Van Lier has to assess each market on its own terms. She needs to know that Bavaria’s Whitsun holidays don’t begin till 2 June this year, so LX 14 of 12 May won’t attract much transfer traffic from Nuremberg or Munich; and she needs to know that Mother’s Day – an event that lures many an émigré European back to the homeland – is 10 May. Except in Poland, that is, where it’s always 26 May.                 

Booking behaviour is influenced by many factors. An international congress or a major cultural or sports event like the New York Marathon increases demand, and “Swiss” can raise its fares accordingly. Conversely, when demand is sluggish, the airline will lower its fares to drum up custom. That’s how the two business travellers from London who almost missed the plane came to choose “Swiss”. The direct British Airways flight from London to New York would have cost them 3,000 pounds in Business Class; the “Swiss” flight via Zurich was just 1,000 pounds. Passengers like these make a substantial contribution to “Swiss’s” ­operating revenue, even though they’re getting their tickets for far less than they would pay for the non-stop alternative. It may seem hard to understand at first; but it does make commercial sense, because the “Swiss” reservation system does its homework every night in carefully comparing availability and demand.

While the airline industry does its utmost to squeeze as much revenue out of every flight as it can, further competitors are active, too. There are websites on the Internet today that use past fare history to predict likely pricing trends. Look for a flight on bingtravel.com, for instance, and you’ll also be advised “Buy now” or “Wait”. It’s a development that may well prompt something of a fare war: as soon as large numbers of people start to rely on such websites, the airlines will need to counter their recommendations through lower offers of their own. At which, of course, the sites will strive to anticipate these new fares, too, and so the circle will continue.

The “demand” for today’s flight included the young man from New Jersey in 29 A, who wanted the lowest possible round-trip fare to visit his wife in Warsaw, and the two ­Spaniards in 42 A and 42 B who can only come and see their uncle in New York because they found a fare of under 600 euro. For the latter, “Swiss’s” reservation system will have deducted the amount “Swiss” will have to pay Iberia for the feeder flight to Zurich and compared what was left to the lowest available fare for a straight Zurich–New York ­ticket. And the system would not have offered the young man from Poland such an ­attractively priced ticket if the “Swiss” flight from ­Warsaw to ­Zur-­ich had been well booked. (It wasn’t.)        

These calculations also need to consider what value the airline attaches to the market concerned. If “Swiss” wants to make Zurich an appealing European gateway for travellers from the USA, the young Pole will be given a certain priority. If the North Atlantic routes need to be promoted more aggressively in the Spanish market, the two Spaniards will bene­fit. The fact that all three are on board with tickets that cost little more than the lowest possible fare is due to the low demand in general for today’s LX 14. At times like these, “Swiss” is pleased with every franc it can earn, to offset the flight’s costs. 

The reservation system is the heart of “Swiss’s” Revenue Management, and is the company’s best-kept secret, too. Unlike the mathematical models of the finance sector, the system’s algorithms have to prove their worth anew every single day. The mainframes of EDS , the successor to Swiss­air’s former Atraxis  subsidiary, juggle vast volumes of data in Kloten-Balsberg and Houston (USA) and translate them into fares. Last year, their efforts provided “Swiss” with more passengers than ever: 13.5 million, giving a seat load factor (the proportion of seats sold) of over 80 per cent. And despite the high price of jet fuel, they helped the company post a profit for the year of over 500 million francs.   
   
Far easier to calculate than an airline’s revenues are the ­associated costs. A quarter of these are fixed: personnel, administration, equipment and so on. Three quarters are vari­able: air traffic control fees, landing fees, airport taxes and – by far the biggest – fuel. Little wonder, then, that kerosene is a ­key currency in any airline’s accounting. Carriers will avoid every kilo of weight they can to lower their fuel consumption.

“Swiss’s” new Airbus A 330-300 burns 13 per cent less fuel than its predecessor, the A 330-200. Not only are its engines more efficient; the new Business Class seats with their pneumatic air cushions are four kilos lighter, saving 650 tonnes of fuel a year fleetwide; and the service trolleys are also made of lighter materials, cutting the annual fuel bill by a further 380 tonnes. Cost efficiency means saving every available minute, too. No aircraft makes money while it’s on the ground, and a plane that is constantly aloft would be the flight planner’s dream. The aircraft on “Swiss’s” North ­Atlantic routes manage a respectable 15 hours in the air each day. And two hours after landing at New York JFK, ­HB-JHA “Schwyz” will be airborne again and heading back to ­Zurich.

When there’s little to do on board, Covolan and Schroeder are free to talk about their private lives. But below 10,000 feet, “Swiss” pursues a “sterile cockpit” philosophy: for take-off and landing, discussion must be strictly limited ­to flight-related matters. The communications here are centred on a series of commands and instructions that have been largely specified by Airbus, the aircraft’s manufacturer. They go a lot further than this, though. The commonest question in any aircraft cockpit is: “Is it OK with you if I…” And “Yes, OK with me” is the commonest reply. This is not Covolan and Schroeder exploring each other’s inner selves; it’s a way of ensuring that each pilot constantly knows what the other is doing. Pilots have been trained to communicate like this since it was realised back in the 1980s that 70 per cent of accidents were due not to any lack of flying skills but to poor communications or inadequate teamwork. In many cases, the accident could have been avoided, and could ­often have been avoided if the commander had communicated his decisions more clearly or the first officer had been more forceful in questioning a dubious decision. 

Korean Air suffered so many accidents in the 1990s that the Canadian authorities considered banning it from their airspace, and the USA forbade its soldiers from travelling on the carrier. Why were so many Korean pilots crashing if they had the same technical skills as their colleagues at other airlines? The answer came from an unlikely source. Back in the 1970s, Dutch psychologist Geert Hofstede had travelled the world asking people how they worked with others and how they felt about authority. He found major variations from culture to culture in the distance people felt towards figures of authority, and compiled his own league table of the “power distances” perceived. The table showed that the distance between superior and subordinate was far smaller in Denmark, for instance, than it was in Colombia.

When the study was repeated with pilots, the countries with poor accident records topped the “power distance list”: South Korea was second. And when it came to taking corrective action here, one simple measure proved particularly effective. In 2000, Korean Air decreed that English should be the language of communication in all the airline’s cockpits. The switch freed the company’s pilots at a stroke from all the hierarchical implications of the various forms of ­address in the Korean language.    

“Swiss” has its own tool – the “Speak-up Cockpit” – to min­imise distance to authority. Under this approach, first ­officers are actively encouraged to speak out if they feel the need, and not see themselves as underlings or the recipients of someone else’s orders. In the latest studies into this “power distance” among flying personnel, Switzerland is in mid-table. The distance is smallest in Ireland and Denmark, and greatest in the Philippines and Morocco. Korean Air has improved several places. Covolan expressly told his first officer before take-off to alert him to any error he might make – a clear sign of “cockpit democracy” in action. In ­doing so, Covolan does not feel that he has lost any of his authority. He has never been one for hierarchies anyway: he thinks persuasion is a far better approach. And he feels confirmed in this belief by the year he spent as an instructor with Jet Airways of India back in 2006, helping the carrier establish its long-haul operations: “If I’d come in there and just said ‘that’s the way we do it, end of story’,” he recalls, “I wouldn’t have got anywhere at all.” 

Neither Covolan nor Schroeder was a full-blooded flying fan from an early age. Covolan was originally a primary school teacher, and only got into flying through the father of a pupil; Schroeder started out as an IT specialist, but was persuaded to take the aptitude tests by a colleague in the Swiss army. The first step here is a five-part assessment that sorts the wheat from the chaff; and this is followed by a series of medical and psychological examinations and various assessments of the candidate’s behaviour, performance and abilities under stress and when dealing simultaneously with multiple tasks or problems. Of the 20 candidates who passed their selection with Schroeder, only two failed to complete their subsequent pilot training.

When it came to recruiting military pilots in the First World War, the selection process was far more straightforward. The British army viewed its flying corps as an extension of the cavalry, so the ability to ride a horse well was the prime criterion. The French felt strong nerves were the most important thing, so they would fire a pistol beside the candidate’s ear and see how he reacted. The Americans, meanwhile, believed that a good sense of balance was paramount: they put their applicants on a piano stool and spun them around, and anyone who threw up was also turned down.      

The difference between the commander and his first officer has nothing to do with their respective flying ­abilities. It’s that for all the teamwork approach, the commander bears ultimate responsibility. For a while after his upgrading in 1995, Covolan recalls, he sometimes caught himself glan­cing to the left (as he had done as a first offi­cer) at trickier moments. All he saw, though, was the cockpit window and his reflection looking back. He now bears his responsibil­ities with a calm and natural ease: he has 6,512 take-offs and landings under his belt, has accumu­lated 13,500 flying hours on six aircraft types and has flown some 11 million kilometres.   

LX 14 continues calmly on. During the pre-flight briefing, Covolan had pointed with his pen to a mid-Atlantic zone on his meteorological chart where a warm and a cold front were converging. The forecast 8-degree temperature difference between the two air masses would be enough to produce light turbulence, and Covolan had informed the cabin crew accordingly. It would be no problem, though, to one who had seen far worse weather from his cockpit seat.
Thunderstorms were one of the biggest dangers to the early aviators, who would sit in their open cockpits defying the elements in their soaking-wet leather flying gear. Pilots ­today are simply advised not to look out during lightning storms and to turn on the storm light, which provides ­additional brightness in the cockpit and lessens the contrast with (and the blinding effect of) any lightning seen. Lightning makes a massive bang if it strikes an aircraft, but it is nothing out of the ordinary; and, like a car, the aircraft will generally emerge unscathed. Airbus’s test pilots even seek out storms to fly into. Covolan has experienced several lightning strikes; Schroeder has this particular “baptism” still to come.

Today, though, there’s not even the odd shudder to be felt. Ahead, the Canadian coast comes gradually into view. Ice floes as far as the eye can see lie on the waters like polystyr­ene flakes. A little later, Grindstone Island appears on the horizon. Every time Marc Schroeder sees this remote isle in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, he vows to go there one day. Maybe he will; or maybe it will remain one of the countless places he has viewed all over the world from 30,000 feet but has never got round to visiting.

Text by Lukas Egli, Anja Jardine, Mikael Krogerus, Benno Maggi, Gudrun Sachse, Reto U. Schneider and Daniel Weber.

Forward to part 4: Where time stands still