Swiss just got another 15 million Swiss Franks ´loan´ from Zürich airport!

Did someone say ALITALIA?!?! :yuk:

Here is the news: http://www.baz.ch/news/index.cfm?key...5675BDC4C1B53A

What I don´t understand is all this talk about load factor.

I guess it´s an indication of market share, but it says nothing much about making a profit.

Nothin´ to worry about folks!

Swiss made a ´profit´ ( ;) ) despite:

1) a drop in load factor
2) fuel at almost 50 Dollars/barrel and selling it´s fuel hedges!

Looks like a great recipe for the future! Makes me wonder why they need that 15 million Sfr loan after all! :rolleyes: :hmm:

Recent moves of Switzerland's transport minister Moritz Leuenberger towards reopening talks with Germany about Zurich Airport approach routes and reitaration of the Confederation desire to sell its 20% Swiss stake are hinting to possible new talks between Swiss and Lufthansa.

Swiss CEO Franz also stresses the necessity to resolve delays and improve service to the pax at ZRH. Within the airline, he started a new round of negociation on wages with cabin personal, cut parking and rail transport expenses for the crews, outsourced IT-Services, talked about bringing the continental fleet into a separate entity and so on.

In short CEO Franz started a low-key and low-profile restructuring campaign which can only please the long sought and deeply needed industrial partner named Lufthansa...

Interstingly enough, Swiss sticks to the RJs. 24 RJ-85 and RJ-100 cockpit doors will be equiped with a video camera for security purpose. A costly gadget while the airline is saving on parking lots ! And no words of the Embraers. In May 03 CityLine (Lufthansa regional) has decided to continue to operate its fleet of 18 Avro RJ85 jets well into the second half of this decade. Could be a good fit.

So far, just food for thoughts, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear sometime next year of a partnership LH-LX (that would a least allow LX to retain its brand for obvious political reasons.)

Thanks for the compliment, Studi.

To keep the same trafic rights as today, it would require to keep -- at least on the paper -- a majority of shares in swiss hands. But as the AF-KLM deal has already shown, they are workaround possibilities.

Indeed, Swiss could and should retain its name but could be operated in the meantime by a single management, common to Deutsche LH and Swiss.

It would indeed be sensible to retain the name Swiss, not only for the brand (at least for those who are still believing in the Swissair thing) but mainly to soften public opinion in Switzerland, as medias and politics could easily kill the deal. They already killed the Alcazar KLM-SAS-AUA-SR project, a killing that opened the door to the Hunter Strategy which, in turn, lead to the 2001 grounding. :uhoh:

From Swissinfo today

Swiss spokesman Jean-Claude Donzel said the company had handed over a document to the unions in which it stated how many pilots’ jobs were to be cut.

The move was confirmed by Christoph Frick, the president of Swiss pilots, the union of former Crossair pilots, who said that it represented the “maximum demands” from Swiss.

But both men declined to comment on the mooted amount of 306 posts, saying that negotiations between the two sides, currently ongoing, are confidential.

According to the Zurich-based SonntagsZeitung, the document, which has been presented to the pilots, cabin personnel and ground staff unions, calls for the number of jobs among regional pilots to fall from 440 to 207.

The number of posts cut for Airbus pilots is said to be 73 of the 658 pilots currently employed.

Restructuring

Swiss announced on January 18 that it is to shed up to 1,000 jobs over the next 18 months and reduce its fleet by 13 aircraft in a bid to cut costs by SFr300 million ($253 million) by 2007.

At the time, the company said it hoped that one third of the jobs due to be axed could be lost through natural attrition. Swiss would be discussing the compulsory job cuts with the unions, it added.

The airline blamed pressure from low-cost carriers, such as easyJet, for the decision to downsize, and said it would focus in future on profitable routes.

Swiss warned that it needed to implement the measures quickly to be in a position to post an operating profit for 2005.

The current European fleet is made up of seven Saab, 19 Jumbolino and 11 Embraer machines. The SonntagsZeitung alleges that all Saab pilots are due to lose their jobs and that after restructuring only 17 Jumbolino and seven Embraer planes will remain in service.

Destinations

According to another Sunday paper, the French-speaking Le Matin Dimanche, Swiss is preparing to hand over three destinations from Geneva Airport - Paris, Rome and Lisbon - to its foreign partners.

Donzel declined to comment on this, saying only that at the end of negotiations two to three destinations from Geneva airport would be transferred to other companies and that Swiss would continue to serve six destinations from Geneva.

The SonntagsZeitung figures are wrong.

Whatever the figures are on the direction's agenda, they are anyway to be negociated until the end of May. So drink your cup of tea and wait calmly until some reliable figures come out.

Another story hitting the headlines says that a deal has already been struck between LH and LX. ==> Click Here

As far as GVA is concerned, the Summer Timetable reinstate a direct GVA-JFK every day of the week (formely 6 flights out of 7 days).

None of them I hope but LH pilots... That makes sense, no?