Swiss Shares Suspended!

Originally posted by EAL_KING
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
i love that airline please god do not let it die!!!!

:rolleyes:

Anyway, seeing the situation i think Swiss should join OneWorld just for its survival.

swiss is joining oneworld

Swiss set to join BA alliance
By Kevin Done and Lina Saigol
Published: September 22 2003 23:57 | Last Updated: September 22 2003 23:57

British Airways and Swiss International Airlines are expected to announce Tuesday that the struggling Swiss carrier will join the Oneworld global airline alliance.

At a board meeting on Monday Swiss rejected a rival deal offered by Germany’s Lufthansa to enter the Star alliance in favour of making an agreement with BA and Oneworld, which is more likely to allow it to remain an independent carrier, at least for the medium term.

As a key part of the BA/Swiss deal the UK carrier is expected to acquire a significant number of Swiss’s take off and landing slots at the highly congested London Heathrow airport, which will provide an immediate injection of cash for the Swiss group.

The deal is a further part in the consolidation of the European airline industry and comes as negotiations between KLM and Air France on a potentially much more ambitous combination have also reached an advanced stage.

A KLM spokesman said on Monday that the two groups were “satisfied with the progress” made in their negotiations, but added “we are very careful about the deal we want to make…we don’t have a specific date or deadline we are working to.”

The Dutch and French airlines said last week that “critical points” were still to be resolved. They said they were in detailed discussions on “an intensive co-operation” as well as on KLM’s entry into the SkyTeam alliance, which is led by Air France and Delta Air Lines of the US.

Both sets of negotiations have been triggered by the strong pressures for consolidation in the European airline industry with many airlines still deep in loss and the traditional carriers losing market share heavily to the rapidly growing low cost airlines.

The talks between BA and Swiss, the airline formed last year to replace the bankrupt Swissair, have intensified in recent weeks, as Swiss has sought to draw up a survival strategy in the face of continuing heavy losses.

Swiss has been in loss since its formation and recently announced a net loss of SFr333m for the first half of the year. KLM, one of the most highly indebted carriers in Europe, is in its third successive year of losses.

Swiss was formed out of the 2001 collapse of the former Swissair through a SFr2.7bn rescue by the Swiss federal government, several cantons, and leading Swiss industrial groups, banks and private investors.

It started flying at the end of March last year but has struggled from the outset with too much capacity and a network that was too big for its available market.

The Swiss airline is trying to drive through a third restructuring package in less than 12 months aimed at cutting annual costs by SFr1.6bn and has admitted that it needs additional financing of SFr500m to help fund the rescue.

The cash injection from selling slots to BA was therefore a key element in securing the deal.

Throughout the negotiations BA has said that it was not interested in taking any equity stake in Swiss and it wanted no financial or management exposure to the Swiss group.

The rival deal offered by Lufthansa was expected to have involved the German carrier taking a stake in Swiss, albeit with tough conditions, and the German airline would have expected to have a direct influence in the operations of the Swiss group.

As part of its entry into Oneworld Swiss is expected to announce a bilateral marketing alliance with BA, which will include extensive code-sharing arrangements, under which the two carriers will sell seats on some of each other’s flights, and will also include co-operation on frequent flyer programmes and shared facilities such as business lounges at some airports.

Swiss already has bilateral links with six other Oneworld carriers including American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas.

Originally posted by Jeanske_SN
Smart BA! I wouldn’t fly swiss, not even for free. I wouldnt ly it because it came from Swissair, and swissair made sabena go bankrupt. If I would speak better english, i would explain why. I read three books about it, and sabena had a lot of commitments (dictionnary says that its noit the good word i guess) by swissair. The made them buy 34 airbusses when the personnell wanted to add some ng 737’s to the 737 ng fleet. That would have saved sabena for many years.

im sorry, but if u have never flown swiss, u really shouldnt talk…it is a wonderful airline, and it would truly be a shame to see it go…
however, im sure u dont believe that sabena’s demise came from the fact that in their 65(or was it 75??) year history, they only had ONE non-loss-making year….
Sabena was a mess before SR stepped into it, and that proved to be on of Swissair’s biggest mistakes which would eventually lead to bankruptcy…
sorry, but when making statements, think about them first 🙂

Originally posted by Mark L
Hmm, a difficult one. SWISS were extremely keen to join Oneworld a while back, but BA were holding them back due to the threats of expansion at Zurich.
Personally I don’t think that it is any worse a situation for BA than expansion at Dublin or Madrid, and I think SWISS would make a quality addition to Oneworld providing they can get a bit of a cash boost.
Because of that Lufthansa might also get it I suppose, although neither airline has a lot of cash to spend.
Personally I think they will end up in Onworld, as they are basically in the alliance anyway! However I thought this for LOT too, and look where they ended up…!

Smart BA! I wouldn’t fly swiss, not even for free. I wouldnt ly it because it came from Swissair, and swissair made sabena go bankrupt. If I would speak better english, i would explain why. I read three books about it, and sabena had a lot of commitments (dictionnary says that its noit the good word i guess) by swissair. The made them buy 34 airbusses when the personnell wanted to add some ng 737’s to the 737 ng fleet. That would have saved sabena for many years.

Hmm, a difficult one. SWISS were extremely keen to join Oneworld a while back, but BA were holding them back due to the threats of expansion at Zurich.
Personally I don’t think that it is any worse a situation for BA than expansion at Dublin or Madrid, and I think SWISS would make a quality addition to Oneworld providing they can get a bit of a cash boost.
Because of that Lufthansa might also get it I suppose, although neither airline has a lot of cash to spend.
Personally I think they will end up in Onworld, as they are basically in the alliance anyway! However I thought this for LOT too, and look where they ended up…!

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
i love that airline please god do not let it die!!!!

Sound’s like another Swiss carrier will go pear shaped leaving the market open for BA, Lufthansa or any of the other European predatory airlines to step in.

Shame 🙁