Yes, I did. I also heard the comments made by the CEO Christoph Franz himself, explaining that Swiss has left the intensive care unit to land now in a "normal" hospital, and that a "partner" is the only way for Swiss to get her out of there.
He also stressed that Swiss is to remain a kind of "universal" carrier and that the long-haul network is to remain as it is, even if is willing to reduce de rate of transfer pax in ZRH from 65 to 60%.
In the meantime, he complained about the ZRH-hub as being one of the less efficient and most expensive in Europe.
Let's face it. We both know from the political situation, both at local and federal level, that nothing will happen to ease the problem. We also know that with such a high transfer rate on such a tiny market, Swiss expose itself not only to the high structural costs of this hub (delay, ground services and maintenance, high altitude = less payload, flight restrictions and so on), but also to painful increases in the related costs by any exceptional event (from snow up to 11/9).
On the account side, the very positive news are that Swiss got an almost operatinal break even in June for the first time since its inception. But, the very same H1 results show that the cash-drain remains high: 828'729 Swiss francs and twenty-eight cents PER DAY, to be precise.
Therefore, I'm just wondering how Swiss is going to make it, without a credit-facility, without an alliance and with always less people on board (another 850 Swiss employees lost their job since January 1st).
Last year restructuration translates into an 8% improvement of the operational result, while capacity and staff were cut by merely one third. It's a big improvement in such a short period of time, which mainly shows that Swiss was way too fat. It is in the meantime a poor result, if you consider the above mentionned proportions and face the fact that it is still not enough to stop the cash-drain.
Restructuring an airline is very demanding both in management and financial capacities. Both are lacking Swiss. Franz hopes that the June result was not a straw fire and that the improvement of Swiss cash position (thanks to the 68 millions he gets from AOM/Air Lib') will give him some handling for astep-to-step restructuring.
Last but not least, Franz is not an idiot and will first try to get his grip on power before getting really serious about further cuts. The fact that Martin Isler lost his job as a network manager shows that Franz is handling where he can. Confronting now the former Swissair lobby (ranging from the pilots to the bureaucratic idiots turning the light off at 5 PM) with a down-sizing of the long-haul fleet would be Franz suicide.
Just wait and see, and let us post again at the end of the month, to see how many of the big share holders stick by their lock-up agreement, buddy. It's gonna be very telling about the future, if all of a sudden, Swiss shares (- 85% from July 2002 to now) flock the market...
