Hi Studi,
Here some clarifications:
I don't believe LH wants to see Swiss sink. Longhaul air travel is still a highly political business, you just cannot fly wherever you want like in Europe, so LH could not provide any direct longhaul routes from ZRH.
First, I do not believe either that LH wants to let LX down. It would be clevier to take it over to refrain AF-KLM and BA from a costly dog fight over Swiss market shares that would follow a Swiss collapse.
Second, the Seventh Freedom is implemented in Switzerland. I.e. LH could fly from FRA, pick up pax in ZRH, and fly them in a third country. It's basically what LH is interested in, within a mutli-hub concept FRA-MUN-ZRH. ZRH would be the LH-Base for Southern Europe, Middle-East and Africa, according to plans made last September.
Third, the political dimension of the play do exist, but not as far as long-haul destinatations are politically important for the Swiss economy or diplomacy. It is politcally relevant because the long-haul pilots and former Swissair managers now working for Swiss have managed to build a powerful pressure group within the confederation and the medias, especially within the Ringier publishing house and its yellow paper Blick.
A recent study brought by the Neue Zurcher Zeitung shows that a Swiss collapse would not have a significant impact on the connectivity of Switzerland with the rest of the world.
If all longhaul direct connections from ZRH into the world would be cancelled, LH would compete against the two other alliances. From a customer point of view it's not obvious whether you would fly via LHR, CDG or FRA/MUC.
However, if Swiss stays alive and keeps the standalone profitable direct longhaul routes, LH as a potential new owner could take the profit and beat the other two alliances with the argument of direct flights from ZRH.
Fully agreed. See above.
How many of this routes really would be profitable is a thing for the network managers, they will figure it out. But I'm pretty sure a living (maybe again resized) Swiss under LH ownership is of more benefit for LH than a dead Swiss.
For the sake of the remaining 7'500 workers at Swiss, I do hope this opinion will be heard. It's been now over three years of fear and job cuts at Swiss...