Swiss boss resigned

I read an headline telling that Swiss boss quited today.

Here it is in English:

Airline Swiss suffers setback as head resigns amid accident probe

GENEVA (AFP) – The airline Swiss suffered a setback in its attempts to fly out of financial trouble when chief executive Andre Dose announced he was resigning from the post.

Dose said in a statement he was standing down because he was likely to be targeted by a legal probe into the crash of a Crossair airliner near Zurich in November 2001, in which 24 people were killed.

The outgoing head of Swiss was at the helm of the regional airline Crossair at the time of the accident.

Swiss announced in a statement that chairman Pieter Bouw would take over the chief executive’s role on a temporary basis with immediate effect.

Dose’s departure comes less than two weeks before the company is due to present its full 2003 financial results and its outlook for 2004.

The airline cut its losses by a third last year to 687 million Swiss francs (420 million euros, 525 million dollars) from a loss of 980 million francs in 2002, according to interim results announced last month.

But it is still struggling to pull out of financial trouble after it slashed one-third of its staff and one-third of its fleet last year as global air travel slumped.

The restructuring plan was largely shepherded through by Dose, who has headed Swiss since the decision was made to set up the airline by merging Crossair with the remnants of bankrupt national carrier Swissair in late 2001.

Dose said in a statement that Swiss’s board had advised him that the probe into the accident at Bassersdorf “would weigh on me in a way that would make the pursuit of my activities as chief executive of Swiss impossible”.

Switzerland’s federal prosecutor opened a judicial inquiry into possible manslaughter last month after the official investigation by aviation authorities blamed the crash on a combination of pilot error, failings at Crossair, as well as with aviation authorities.

Although the board had suggested that it only suspend his term for the duration of the legal inquiry, Dose said he had preferred to leave the job altogether.

“Since Swiss is in the middle of a turnaround, I could not accept the responsibility of leaving my task as head of the group for an indeterminate period of time,” Dose said.

“With due consideration to Swiss and its 6,000 employees, I have made my post available to the board, and agreed to terminate my contract in keeping with the accepted conditions,” he added in the statement.

Dose said he had agreed to stay on as an adviser at the request of the board to help follow through with the ailing airline’s restructuring plan.

“I am still convinced that Swiss will succeed with its turnaround,” Dose later told Swiss television.

In a statement, Swiss’s board said it respected Dose’s decision, acknowledging “his great achievement in establishing the young airline and setting it on course towards a sound financial future”.

Dose, 46, was also the architect of Swiss’s entry into the Oneworld alliance alongside British Airways (LSE: BAY.L – news – msgs) , which he had always claimed would be essential for the airline’s long-term future.

Swiss in February recorded another drop in passenger load rates on its flights to 69.6 percent, a drop of 0.6 percentage points compared to January.

Dose has also been struggling for the past six months to obtain a loan of 500 million Swiss francs from major banks.

Last November, Swiss’s chief financial officer, William Meaney resigned less than a year after he arrived at the company, where he introduced a low-price flights in Europe.

Although magistrates have not explicitly stated that Dose was being targeted in their probe, several newspapers in Switzerland have raised the prospect.

“The board condemns the imputations, personal attacks and prejudgements from certain circles to which Andre Dose has been exposed in the last few days and weeks,” the airline’s statement said.

Dose ruled out a return as chief executive if he is cleared in any eventual probe.

“That’s out of the question,” he said.

Swiss has started paying statutory compensation to families of crash victims.