I booked on 13 December flying out today & returning on Monday. It was a larger plane than normal, I do this route until April when EasyJet starts direct flights. It’s always cheaper than the train if I book with Swiss who code share with KM Airmalta
Swiss are basically subsidizing your ZRH-GVA flight to get you to Malta assuming there isn’t a direct flight. I’m sure they could also issue you a train ticket instead of a GVA-ZRH flight
SWISS prices Geneva - Malta independently of Zurich-Malta. They need to appraise the prices available with their competition in Geneva and set their price according to what they believe they can sell a ticket for.
I’ve read somewhere that the Geneva-Zurich air link is a loss leader. It exists to increase the sales of tickets for long flights from both airports. This price difference shows indeed how much Swiss is willing to lose in the short flight in order to keep the long flights full.
This flight implies 2 times as transfer passenger in Zurich:
Transfer passenger 8 CHF
Security charge of transfer passenger 7 CHF.
Thus, 2 * (8 +7) = 30 CHF.
No charges for arriving passenger at Geneva. Airport charges are only departing passengers:
Passenger service charge per departing passenger 14.70 CHF.
Security charge per departing passenger: 13.20 CHF.
That’s 27.9. The total is 30+27.90 = 57.9 CHF. So, Swiss is already losing money only with passenger fees for the airports. Add operational costs (crew, few, maintenance, landing fee, parking fee and other fees) and it’s even a greater loss.
In the end, it’s a choice between losing a lot (empty seats), or losing a bit less by selling you an under priced ticket. They chose to lose a bit less.
GVA-ZRH is not operated to serve the local market. That’s what the train is for. It’s to feed the longhaul and other connecting flights out of Zurich. What isn’t important is the revenue per flight but the total revenue per passenger.
Taxes and fees are generally not included in the price but paid separately by the passenger.
That doesn’t mean that Swiss doesn’t share the revenue, because they do. There are lots of different code-sharing arrangements and the most basic has LX buying a block of seats for a fixed price and selling tickets and keeping the difference.
That was the case at one time throughout Europe but it’s no longer true. In the EU governments are forbidden from giving state aid (aka subsidies) to their airlines. Swiss receives no subsidies from the Swiss or Cantonal governments.
Airlines are expected to be profitable and if they aren’t governments no longer bail them out.