SWISS carried 2.950.685 passengers in the first three months of 2009, 1.6% fewer than the 2.999.517 of the prior-year period. The impact of the present economic crisis on SWISS's passenger business was particularly strong on the intercontinental front, where first-quarter seat load factor fell 4.3 percentage points from the 81.0% of 2008 to 76.7%. Seat load factor for SWISS's European network slipped 1.8 percentage points from 67.6% to 65.8%. SWISS was swift to modify its production in the first quarter of 2009 in anticipation of weakened demand. As a result, production for the period was only slightly above its prior-year level at 32 351 flights (2008: 31 943).
 
On intercontinental routes, traffic volumes declined 3.0% in revenue-passenger-kilometre (RPK) terms, on available-seat-kilometre (ASK) capacity that was 2.5% higher than the prior-year period.
 
On the European network, first-quarter ASK production was a 5.2% increase on January-to-March 2008. Traffic volume was also raised, with total RPKs a 2.4% improvement on the prior-year period.
 
The airfreight business of Swiss WorldCargo suffered a tangible first-quarter decline. Cargo load factor by volume amounted to 66.8%, 18.4 percentage points down on the 85.2% of the prior-year period.
 
The effect of the present economic crisis were felt even more strongly in SWISS's March traffic figures than in its cumulative first-quarter results. SWISS carried 1 066 121 passengers for the month (compared to 1 119 287 in March 2008), and the systemwide seat load factor of 74.4% was a 6.7-percentage-point decline on the 81.1% of the prior-year period. On the cargo front, the 19-percentage-point decline in load factor by volume broadly mirrored the result for the full first quarter.