Swiss performs U Turn about oneworld

surprise, surprise…

11.06.2004

SWISS to serve London City from Basel

Swiss International Air Lines will serve London City Airport from Basel from August 30. The flights to and from City Airport, which is conveniently close to London’s central business district, will be operated thrice daily on weekdays and daily at the weekend using Saab 2000 equipment. The current Basel – London (Heathrow) services will be withdrawn from the start of the 2004/05 winter schedules.

Travellers between Basel and London will again enjoy direct service to and from the latter’s popular City Airport. SWISS will be introducing a new thrice-daily weekday service on the route on August 30, offering attractive early-morning and late-evening frequencies for the business travel community along with a midday flight. Weekend services on the route will consist of a Saturday morning and a Sunday evening flight in each direction, catering for the needs of weekend-break travellers.

City Airport is within easy reach of all key parts of London. The Canary Wharf financial district is just five to ten minutes away, the City banking quarter is a 15-to-20-minute journey, and the West End shopping and entertainment district is only 25 to 30 minutes away. Passengers using the airport also appreciate the short distances to and from the gates and the generous check-in deadlines.

The planned Basel – London City service pattern from August 30:

LX484BSL-LCY 0805-0845 123456-
LX482BSL-LCY 1230-1310 12345–
LX486BSL-LCY 1815-1855 12345-7

The planned London City – Basel service pattern from August 30:

LX485LCY-BSL 0915-1155 123456-
LX483LCY-BSL 1340-1620 12345–
LX487LCY-BSL 1925-2205 12345-7

SWISS Corporate Communications
P.O. Box, CH-4002 Basel
Phone: +41 848 773 773
Fax: +41 61 582 3554
E-mail: [email]communications@swiss.com[/email]

The good news for all you London Based Spotters is, the Saab 2000’s will be returning to LCY.

ah, well, you can read German, then… well, here’s my translation of the article for thsoe who can’t, anyway…

After the Collapse of Swiss’ planned joining of the oneworld Airline alliance, there are currently no talks with alternative partners. That’s Swiss’ Board Room President [I think that’s to say the Chairman] Pieter Bouw’s take on it on Thursday. An Alliance ‘isn’t a necessity to [Swiss’] survival’, as Bouw told the Press.

Swiss had previously announced that they would be passing up on the chance to join oneworld, as they hadn’t been able to reach an agreement with oneworld leader British Airways about the integration of their frequent flyer programs. The substantial costs and disadvantages hadn’t been enough to outweigh the medium and long-term advantages, as Bouw explained the decision. He regrets the development, but the price of joining oneworld under the existing parameters was too high.

Swiss would have had to give up the database of their Swiss Travel Club frequent flyer program. Swiss, however, didn’t want to sacrifice their ‘best asset’. Bouw went on to say that the consequences of the integration of the frequent flyer programs hadn’t been foreseeable when their joining of the alliance had been announced in Autumn 2003.

Changed situation

Swiss retains their total operational and strategical independence. The Company is in better shape than in last autumn, according to Bouw. The Market is slowly recovering, and the liquidity of the company is better than expected. Bilateral agreements with most oneworld members would remain in place. Unaffected by the decision was the transferral of 8 pairs of slots at Heathrow Airport in London to British Airways.

Five of these 8 Slots are a deposit on a credit of 50 Million Swiss Franks [some 40 Million Dollars/22 Million Pounds/33 Million Euros] that Swiss had taken out in February this year. The loss of these slots will have negative financial implications. Other costs for the failed membership drive were termed at 5 Million Franks.

No talks with others

Negotiations for a new agreement were not currently taking place, said Bouw. Nor are any discussions with the German Lufthansa being held. Before Swiss announced their aim to join oneworld last autumn, they’d been conducting talks with Lufthansa about a takeover.

When former Lufthansa-Manager Christoph Franz took over at the top of Swiss [about two months ago, as CEO], and the stalling of the talks with British Airways became obvious, there was increased speculation about a deal with Lufthansa again. Franz was involved in the decision to exit oneworld, Bouw confirmed.

Swiss is currently working at strengthening their financial situation and the implication of a turnaround plan, continued Bouw. A Share issue wasn’t excluded by him, they wanted to keep all their options open.

www.BaZ.ch © by Basler Zeitung

didn’t know about LH taking out a loan, hmm, the plot thickens…

um, well, if your German is good enough, and you can read that newspaper article I posted, no. oneworld are supposedly still there ‘preferred’ alliance partner… but, well, we’ll see…

I’ll sit down and work on a translation of that article, might take a while, though…

#1: “… Nachdem der ehemalige Lufthansa-Manager Christoph Franz an die Spitze der Swiss berufen wurde und die Verhandlungen mit British Airways in Stocken geraten waren, sind Spekulationen über ein Aufgehen in der Lufthansa wieder laut geworden. …”

+#2: Lufthansa taking out a public EUR750M loan.

=3: ???

um, well, if your German is good enough, and you can read that newspaper article I posted, no. oneworld are supposedly still there ‘preferred’ alliance partner… but, well, we’ll see…

I’ll sit down and work on a translation of that article, might take a while, though…

So does that mean they’ll join Star?

yup. and all 10 will be ex-ZRH… and they’ll lose the codeshare to GVA in three years, as things stand, too

So SWISS will have 10 london flights and a codeshare GVA-LHR. Wonderful!

if you go to book on the LX website, for a flight BSL-LHR next April, it says ‘operated by BA, operates to LHR Terminal 1’.
Similarly, the BA website lists flights LHR-BSL from next April as BA flight numbers (BA75x ) as opposed to the codeshare flight number it is now (BA674x), although BA says the flights will operate to/from LHR Terminal 4…

Is the BSL-LHR change a done deal with BA, or was it just a propsal before it all went **** up?

If they have, it’s one hell of a price to pay…

here’s a full list of flights between London and Switzerland for next Winter, as things currently stand…

BSL-LHR (SWISS 3* daily)
BSL -STN (easyJet 1* daily)
GVA-LCY (BACX 3* daily)
GVA-LGW (BA 3* daily)
GVA-LGW (easyJet 2* daily)
GVA-LHR (BA (LX codeshare) 8* daily)
GVA-LTN (easyJet 3* daily)
ZRH-LCY (SWISS 4* daily)
ZRH-LGW (BA 2* daily)
ZRH-LHR (SWISS 6* daily)
ZRH-LHR (BA 6* daily)
ZRH-LTN (easyJet 3* daily)

as you can see, LX have lost out majorly on the should-be cash cow London market, specially with BA taking over the BSL-LHR flights in March 2005…

And Chariman Pieter Bouw says no talks have been held with LH since… (you speak german, Sandy… I can’t be bothered translating this just now http://www.baz.ch/news/index.cfm?ObjectID=E8E9B74D-60CF-2062-F415970A0F11F907)

or perhaps the decision makers have been offered VERY full wallets to do an about-turn and join Star?

SWISS still reckon OneWorld is their preferred partner? Hmm, then why are they not going ahead with the join?
As Bhoy quite rightly said they have screwed themselves over big time with regards to London, either the intialy decision was taken too hastily (Unlikely as they had been pondering the join for years) or this decision was taken too hastily which I think it was considering the prety rapid U-Turn.
I am going to enter conspiricy theory mode and hypothesise that the Swiss government thought the move would threaten Swiss neutrality…

Now… what does this mean for me, I ask myself?

The remaining aspects of SWISS’s collaboration with British Airways will be terminated at the end of the 2004 summer schedules, with the exception of the codeshare arrangement on British Airways-operated services between Geneva and London (Heathrow), which will remain in force for a further three years.

It basically means LX is screwed… As they’ve sold most of their LHR slots to BA (they’ve only retained the ZRH ones), it means all services from Geneva to London (LHR, LCY and LGW)will be BA or BACX operated, with LX only retaining a codeshare agreement on the LHR flights.
Similarly, It looks like BA won’t operate any services to BSL for 6 months between the end of the Summer timetable and the beginning of next year’s Summer timetable, when BA were due to take over LX’ operations on the LHR-BSL route. Consequently, LX, however, won’t have any flights to London ex BSL at all as of the end of March 2005, unless they’re willing to transfer some of their ZRH slots at LHR to BSL, which, frankly, I can’t see…

Nonetheless, competition on fares is going to plummet between Switzerland and the UK… Thankfully easyJet have started operations from BSL, which should at least keep them honest. I also read somewhere that SWISS have reached the conclusion that axeing the BSL-LCY route they inherited from Crossair was a bad idea, as it was a cash cow, and they might reintroduce it, just to retain an interest in the London market, which, with three major Pharmaceutical companies being headquartered in Basel, as well as the Bank of International Settlements, is a pretty big market (in fact, LHR is the only route LX use aircraft with more than 50 seats ex-BSL for (it’s an A320, three times daily)).

Hmm, no doubt we shall see how these problems are solved…

And there’s already a book open on how long it’ll be till the first LX aircraft shows up in Star colours…

and oneworld’s press release…

oneworld releases Swiss International Air Lines from its commitment to join the global alliance

June 03, 2004

oneworld has released Swiss International Air Lines from its commitment to join the global alliance.

The move follows an agreement between the airline and established oneworld partner British Airways to free SWISS, at its request, from the bilateral commercial agreement they signed in October 2003, which was a fundamental condition of it becoming a member of the global alliance.

All code-shares and bilateral relationships between SWISS and the other existing individual oneworld partners remain in place.

oneworld Managing Partner John McCulloch said: “This is unfortunate, but we have always been clear that oneworld will only recruit airlines where they add value both to our customers and to our existing partners. Without the full implementation of its bilateral agreement with British Airways, SWISS would substantially reduce the value BA derives from oneworld.

“SWISS has indicated that oneworld is still its preferred alliance and that it hopes to be in a position to seek membership again in the future, which we would welcome under terms suitable for all.

“Meantime, oneworld has four of Europe’s leading airlines on board, working closely together and based at some of the continent’s best hubs, so we are already strongly represented in this region.

“We continue to offer the world’s most international network, serve more countries than any other alliance, market more alliance fare and sales products than all our rivals combined, and lead the field in customer service with developments like interline e-ticketing between all our partners, which is on track for full implementation by the end of this year. Furthermore, we believe we generate more value for our partners than any of our competitors achieve for their members.”

With partners Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair and Iberia all increasing their services to Switzerland in recent months, oneworld remains committed to its customers in the country and intends to continue to develop its range of services and products in this market, providing the best connections between Zurich, Geneva and Basel to the 575 destinations on the alliance’s worldwide network.

SWISS was originally voted on board as a member elect of oneworld on September 2003.

ends