Swiss carried a total of 13.5 million passengers in 2008 - a 10.3% increase on the 12.2 million of the previous year. Despite a challenging economic environment, SWISS was able to ensure that its substantial increase in production (which was up 12% in available seat-kilometre terms) was fully absorbed by market demand:  systemwide seat load factor stood at 80.3%, compared to 80.2% for 2007. SWISS operated 134 401 flights (or over 360 flights a day) in 2008, a 6.4% increase on the prior year.  
 
Seat load factor for 2008 for the SWISS intercontinental network remained broadly stable at a high 84.2% (2007: 84.3%). While available seat-kilometre capacity was a 12.5% increase on the prior year, long-haul traffic volumes were raised 12.4% in revenue passenger-kilometre terms.
 
Seat load factor on SWISS's European services was improved slightly by 0.3 percentage points to 72.1%. European available seat-kilometre capacity was 10.8% up on the previous year, while revenue passenger-kilometre traffic rose 11.4%.
 
The airfreight business of Swiss WorldCargo showed a positive overall trend for the year. Total cargo traffic was 7.3% up in revenue tonne-kilometre terms; and cargo load factor (by volume) stood at a high 83.8%, only slightly down from the 84.6% of 2007.
 
The economic crisis had a growing impact on SWISS's December results. While the 1 065 557 passengers carried were a 6.4% increase on the 1 001 765 of the same month the previous year, systemwide seat load factor sustained a 1.9 - percentage - point decline, from the 78.2% of December 2007 to 76.3%, thanks in particular to falling demand for premium-segment travel. SWISS's cargo business suffered a sizeable drop in demand: airfreight volumes for December 2008 were 12.9% below their prior-year equivalent in revenue tonne-kilometre terms.