The Swiss Armed Forces have announced the cancellation of major events in 2024 and 2025, including the Air Force’s 110th anniversary airshow.
AirSpirit 24 was scheduled to take place on the 30th-31st August 2024 at Emmen Air Base, marking he 110th anniversary of the Swiss Air Force, the 60th (and probably final) season of the Patrouille Suisse, and the 35th anniversary of the PC-7 Team. It was also intended to be the Swiss airshow debut of the F-35A Lightning II, recently selected as the Swiss Air Force’s next fighter aircraft.
AXALP 2025, the Swiss Air Force’s annual public live fire exercise and airshow, has also been cancelled. The 2024 edition of AXALP had already been pulled from the calendar to allow the Swiss Air Force to focus their efforts on AirSpirit this year.
Defence 25, the Swiss Army’s main public event, has also been cancelled.
The Armed Forces said: “Public events are of great importance for the army in order to build trust and reputation. Since they now train for their missions primarily at weapons ranges and therefore generally far away from the population, the visibility of the troops is limited. Due to the tense financial situation, the army is now foregoing a significant portion of the planned public events. In 2024, the waiver applies, among other things, to the AirSpirit 24 event, which was intended to give the interested public the opportunity to get an idea of the Air Force’s performance in Emmen at the end of August.”
Since its inception, AirSprit 24 had always been planned as a relatively small event compared to previous Swiss Air Force anniversary airshows, with far lower attendence to reduce running costs and the impact on the local community.
2024 and 2025 will be the first years for decades in which the Swiss Air Force has not hosted a major public flying display.
The ramifications for the Swiss Air Force’s display teams is not yet known.