Switzerland’s New $109 Million VIP Government Jet is Too Big to Fit in the Country’s De Facto Capital City Airport

A new Bombardier Global 7500 luxury VIP jet, recently delivered to the Swiss government at a cost of $109 million, is too big to fit in the country’s de facto capital city airport in Bern, and it might be another year before a hangar large enough to accommodate the airplane is built.

Even then, however, the runway at Bern is too short for the plane to take on enough fuel to fly the ultra-long-distance flights, up to 14,260 kilometers, that the aircraft is designed to do.

The Swiss government took delivery of the private jet on December 17 and flew it from Bombardier’s delivery center in Montreal, Canada, to Payerne military airfield, a 55-kilometer drive from Switzerland’s federal administrative center in Bern.

Since the handover, the Swiss Air Force has been completing pilot and crew awareness training, and while the aircraft wasn’t meant to enter regular service until the Spring, the aircraft has already been used by Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis for a trip to Bolivia.

Unfortunately, this trip wasn’t without incident. Cassis and his team had hoped to travel to La Paz, but at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters and one of the highest-altitude commercial airports in the world, airplanes need special certifications to perform landings and takeoffs.

The Swiss government’s state-of-the-art Bombardier Global 7500 jet doesn’t yet have these approvals, so Cassis was forced to fly to a lower-altitude airport and then jump on a regular commercial flight to get to his intended destination.

Eventually, the jet will also have a sophisticated missile defense system installed, but this work isn’t scheduled to take place until Summer 2025 at the earliest. According to the Swiss Air Force, the plane won’t be available for regular use until the end of 2025.

The new plane does, however, still represent a big improvement on the Cessna Citation Excel 560XL aircraft that it is replacing.

According to German aviation publication AeroTelegraph, the new plane will not only be used to transport VIPs and other dignitaries but can also be deployed in the event of a disaster to evacuate injured citizens.

While shorter flights can be completed from Bern-Belp Airport, longer-range flights will likely have to continue to depart from Payerne Airfield.

Switzerland has never had a named capital city, but in 1848, Bern was chosen as the country’s federal city, where the government and other administrative functions would be based. Bern, however, remains relatively small,l and most flights depart from either Geneza or Zurich.