Wearing a white polo shirt, shorts and with sweat on his brow, he is sitting on the bench. It is only when he stands up and walks towards me that the Schwarzenegger‑like figure fully unfolds – suddenly a wall is coming my way. 1.94 metres tall, solidly built, a handshake like a vice. It was his height that shattered his childhood dream: fighter pilot. “Too tall,” they said back then. “With the ejection seat, my legs would probably have stayed in the aircraft,” Fred says with a grin. In an airliner cockpit, on the other hand, there was plenty of room and Fredrik Lindegren has never really left that space throughout his entire professional life.

Chicago, Boston – Bassersdorf
We meet at the “Squash Club Swissair” in Bassersdorf. Fredrik Lindegren has been a member here for 33 years, he joined one year after moving from southern Sweden to Switzerland. “The Squash Club Swissair is the only club that still carries the Swissair logo,” he says proudly. Fred has just been training with a fellow pilot; his face is still a bit glassy. Back from Chicago the day before yesterday, off to Boston tomorrow – Fred comes here “as often as somehow possible” between flights. “As a pilot you hardly move, so this is where I compensate.”

On court, Fred is just as clear‑headed as in the cockpit. “You always have to play long and deep,” he says with an enthusiasm you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a 60‑year‑old after a tough match. While others are still warming up the ball, Fred smashes it against the wall with Nadal‑like power, enough to make you feel slightly queasy every time.

Planned for three years, stayed a lifetime
“Long and deep” doesn’t just apply to squash. It’s also a pretty accurate description of his almost 40‑year career in commercial aviation. In 1992, Fredrik Lindegren comes to Kloten. Together with 45 other pilots from the Scandinavian airline SAS in Sweden and Norway, he is seconded to Swissair for three years. His assignment: to help introduce the then new MD‑11 into flight operations. At the time, Swissair was facing a pilot shortage because the predecessor type, the DC‑10, was still operated with a flight engineer, and there was only one co‑pilot in the cockpit. On the MD‑11, many things were automated; Swissair operated it with three, and depending on route and distance, even four pilots on the flight deck.

“Long‑haul really got hold of me,” says Fredrik Lindegren. “At SAS, most pilots flew short‑haul; at Swissair it was the other way round: a large fleet, the big wide world.” Then there was Switzerland itself. “As a child I spent a lot of time in the Alps. And my family and I simply liked it here.” After those three years, Swissair’s Chief Pilot Alois Schneider offered all Scandinavian pilots a permanent position. Around half of the 45 pilots stayed – Fred among them.

From bells to iPads
When Fredrik Lindegren talks about his early years in the cockpit, it almost sounds like a different era. In 1989 he starts at SAS on the DC‑9 – “only bells in the cockpit,” as he puts it. Analogue instruments, thick paper manuals, no screens. On its successor, the MD‑11, which he flies long‑haul for Swissair from 1992 onwards, the cockpit suddenly feels like a leap into the future: several displays, complex automation, the flight engineer disappears, and instead two or three pilots sit up front.

“For some of the older DC‑10 captains, that was a huge step,” Fredrik Lindegren recalls. “In the past, they could delegate technical issues to the specialist. Suddenly they had to dive into the systems themselves.” Not everyone managed that transition; some did not pass the conversion training and took early retirement.

From the three‑engine jet to Airbus: first short‑haul on the A320, now Fredrik Lindegren flies the A330 and A340 with the sidestick. All charts and manuals are now on the iPad. “Sometimes I see young co‑pilots who grew up with the iPad. They’re much quicker than I am,” he says, hinting at the not‑to‑be‑underestimated pressure behind the scenes: “If you’re not willing in this job to constantly adapt to new technology, procedures and tools, you run the risk of falling behind.”

Between wanderlust and homesickness
Los Angeles, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore – on many flights, Fredrik Lindegren has also taken his daughter along. It didn’t exactly thrill her. “Just sitting there, monitoring, drinking coffee and eating SWISS Schöggeli” – she found that boring, he says with a laugh. She became an emergency doctor.

As tempting as long‑haul flying and life in Switzerland were, they came at a price. In 2002, his wife returned to southern Sweden with their then five‑year‑old daughter. The homesickness was too strong, but there were also practical reasons. “I was flying 100 percent, she was working part‑time – that wasn’t always easy to coordinate,” he says matter‑of‑factly. Fredrik Lindegren stayed in Switzerland. A life between Kloten, his family home in southern Sweden and all the destinations his life as a pilot took him to begin. Birthdays, everyday school life, weekends together: a lot of it happened without him. Looking back, he still talks about a good “arrangement», but also about a reality of the profession that people are less keen to discuss: “Long‑haul doesn’t just mean the big wide world, it sometimes also means big distances in everyday life.”

Despite everything, flying remains his passion. “The enthusiasm for flying will never end” and so does his enthusiasm for the SWISS brand. SWISS is something very special to him. Depending on the destination, he has flown with other airlines as well, “but it’s just not the same. The warmth, the service – it’s incomparable. Flying for SWISS is a privilege!”

“One‑nightstand” in Johannesburg
Soon it will be time for the so‑called “Declared Last Flight” – his final assignment as a permanently employed captain at SWISS. For this flight, he is allowed to put together the entire crew himself, choose the co‑pilot and select the destination. They are all close friends. The destination: Johannesburg.

By coincidence, this rotation only includes one night’s layover at destination. “There will only be a one‑nightstand in Johannesburg,” Fred says with a grin. “In the past, we would sometimes spend up to a week at certain destinations.How does a pilot who has been flying for almost 40 years feel shortly before this moment? Fred sits there relaxed, the picture of coolness. “It doesn’t affect me much,” he says. “It won’t be my last flight yet.”

Indeed, the signed freelance contract is already at home. Freelance means that after his regular retirement he will no longer be permanently employed but will return to the cockpit as a captain with a maximum workload of 50 percent. One or two long‑haul flights a month instead of a full roster. Fredrik Lindegren knows he will still be in demand and will probably complete a few dozen more flights as a freelancer. It’s not a farewell yet – more of a gear change. Or, to stay with aviation: the beginning of the approach to land at the end of a long pilot’s career.