New Swiss airline flyBAIR launches crowdfunding campaign

Initiators of a new regional “peoples’ airline” to be based in Switzerland’s capital Bern, have started a crowdfunding campaign to launch it ahead of the 2020 summer holiday travel season. flyBAIR, which was presented to the public on 1 November, plans to begin operating daily direct flights from Bern to several European holiday destinations in Spain, Italy and Greece from 1 May 2020. Later in the year, it hopes to connect the city to a major hub such as Munich, Amsterdam or London. Currently, no commercial airlines serve the airport in the Swiss capital. Passengers must travel to the airports at Geneva, 93mi (150km) to the southwest, or Zurich, 75mi to the northeast, in order to reach any other destination by air. On its website, flyBAIR explains that it needs 2.5m Swiss francs to launch and is aiming to raise 1 million francs from the citizens Bern in the first 30 days of its kickstarter campaign. As of early morning on 8 November local time, 415,000 francs, or about 41% of that goal had been reached. “Our idea is crazy,” the website states. “We are calling on the population of Bern to support our dream because we believe that it is high time that an airline connects Bern to Europe again.”<br/>