Crossair aircraft impounded at Nice

[recceguy]

Crossair EMB-145 flying Nice to Basel (LX 705) with 33 passengers has been impounded at Nice today, by french lawyers acting as a result of Air Lib legal action. Passengers have been reassigned to other flights (or to hotels...)
Swissair/Crossair is still owing 61 M euros to Air Lib - which used to be 49.5% owned by Swissair, thus the reason for the action.

Lawyer somewhere ?

[Hold at Saffa]

Recceguy, you are wrong!
Swissair might owe Air Liberte something, but Crossair doesn't owe them a dime! Not one red cent!

This action is completely illegal.

Crossair has nothing whatever to do with the debts or perceived financial responsibilities of Swissair. SR and Crossair are COMPLETELY separate legal entities.

Crossair is working hard to expand its operation, and to assume the roll of Switzerland's new flag carrier. If ATC strikes weren't enough, we now have ill informed French lawyers initiating bogus action in the French courts that have absolutely no basis of fact under law....French or otherwise.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[ 13 December 2001: Message edited by: Hold at Saffa ]

[gingernutter]

Hey, get real, Crossair are just another bunch of CROOKS like Swissair. Nothing against the employees but you CANNOT say that what SWISSAIR and CROSSAIR are doing is NOT ILLEGAL. Wait for it to go to court . . . IRMC :eek:

[Hold at Saffa]

At least the "nutter" part of your handle is right on the money! Be sure of your facts before flapping your gums, Ginger, there's a good chap.

[trackone]

It would be too good if someone had found a way to make Swissair pay the breakages it caused and is trying to escape from with its dirty tricks.
Crossair, what a laugh! As if no one had understood that it is only foul play to lay off SR personnel and escape from its responsabilities towards the companies it sunk.
French law, go for it!

[recceguy]

I'm not a lawyer, neither an economist - just a pilot, used to be a warrior.

So I have no idea whether Air Lib has made a right or a wrong claim - the FACT is that the aircraft has been impounded by lawyers, acting as a result of this claim, which has been considered valid enough by the local french court - with obviously big fuss inside the airport from the passengers...

Any support from the belgium side ?

[Hunter58]

What a brilliant act of lawyers. And what money pocket should the cash come from? The billions Sabena, Air Lib and all the others cost Swissair and caused the crash (financial!!!)? Or maybe even the Swiss Taxpayer? That could be a totally bad assumption. Fist we'd have to shoot these lawyers!

Just wonder how long the financial institutions behind the airplanes will take to start knocking of all French airline's door and recollect their assets. I understand none of the leasing guys finds such a game fun, and they are very quick!

Could be the dead call for Air Lib!!!


Gingernutter

and how long would Air Lib and all it's predecessors have existed would Bruggisser not have 'invested' so much money into them? A couple of months after the take-over, I think. So you should say thank you!

[ive348]

Hey Hunter58, I think you are turning things upside down here!! It is not Sabena or the other airliners fault that Swissair went down, but the other way around! As a result of wrong investments, decided from Switserland, they got into trouble. And somebody will have to pay, be it the Swiss taxpayer, or the state, or Crossair :mad:

[Hooking Fell]

Hold at Saffa and Hunter 58:

Your posts are most notable for their propensity to push the line that SAir Group, Swissair, Crossair or indeed your entire country can do no wrong. However, the facts keep getting in the way of your wishful thinking.

The fact is that the entire outcome of the Swissair debacle in corporate terms (i.e. LX becoming the new flag carrier and integrating parts of SR's previous hardware and operations) is a legal construction aimed almost entirely at being able to operate a "virtual SR" without running into legal obstacles in a number of countries where substantial claims against SAir Group and any of its legal successors have been registered.

Anyway, with such blind faith in LX, Rainer Gut might be interested in either of you as PR consultants :D

[CarbonBrake]

Throwing stones while sitting in the glass house is quite risky, my dear belgian fellas !
No brain, no gain, even in France, Belgium and HongKong ;)

CB

[Hooking Fell]

Carbonbrake:

Surely, that should read Coockoo Land :p

In any case, assuming that anyone whose abode is not among cows and cheese lacks any brain is probably par for the course, given the absence of any substance in your contribution to this thread.

You have to live up to the fact that the one and only reason for the entire SAir Group collapse is to be found in the company's own and tragically unsuccessful expansion strategy in the 90s. And that again was a result of the refusal of top SAir brass to acknowledge what the rest of the world had already known for a long time: that SR was not one of the megacarriers and that it could thus not be a leader in any major alliance. Thus, they set out to create a second-tier alliance (Qualiflyer) which would allow them to play first fiddle (never mind that the other members happened to be either insolvent or from microeconomies or both).

The saddest part of it all is that some contributors to this forum, inlcuding yourself, Hold at Saffa, and Hunter 58, are still incapable of seeing the economic realities of today's world. A country the size of a cow pat with some 7 million people cannot be home to a major carrier, as it lacks the necessary domestic market.

Reading your patriotic stuff reminds me of what one of our teachers (I did go to school in Switzerland) used to say when simplistic ideas were dished up as mantra: "So, wie Klein-Hänschen sich die Welt vorstellt....:"

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

[ 14 December 2001: Message edited by: Hooking Fell ]

[ 14 December 2001: Message edited by: Hooking Fell ]

[Hold at Saffa]

Ah Hooking, so much time on your hands.
Your paragraph about the SR collapse is fully accepted. No argument there whatever. Richtig, Stimpt, Genau!

As for the economic realities of a country the size of a cowpat....well, all I can do is suggest you have a closer look at the Crossair business plan.

http://www.airlinecrew.net/images/Airline_logos/crx.gif (http://www.project-phoenix.ch/en/project/businessplan.html)

It is conservative in the extreme and makes perfect BUSINESS sense. It has risks associated with it, certainly, every new business venture does, but these are acknowledged and are being addressed well.

Whether we lack a domestic market of sufficient size, in the world accoring to you, is debatable. What is not, however, is that Zurich, Geneva and Basel constituate a catchment area of vastly broader dimension, and is entirely consistent with Crossair's efforts.

No matter how you toss the chop suey, Hooking Fell, Crossair IS IN NO WAY responsible for debts accumulated in the name of what used to be called Swissair.

[ 15 December 2001: Message edited by: Hold at Saffa ]

[Hooking Fell]

Hold at Saffa:

Not too much time on my hands, really....just the odd day off.

Whilst you are right in saying that Crossair (as in its former legal and practical embodiment) was not responsible for the debts racked up by its parent SAir Group, the situation surrounding "New Crossair" is far less clear. To most observers (including the more serious Swiss media) it is blatantly clear that this new outfit has been created as a possibly practical and expedient way to continue what are essentially SR-operations and at the same time try to keep SAir creditors from getting back their money.

No doubt there will be numerous legal challenges to "New Crossair-cum-Swissair" and we'll all have sufficient opportunities to see whether the courts share your view!

[GEENY]

Swissair to Crossair=Aireuropeitaly to Volareair

[Few Cloudy]

Well just to get it straight, Crossair was supposed to be running the whole shooting match - short and long range and Swissair was supposed to be defunct as of 28. October this year.

It turned out that the Crossair management just didn't have time to gain the expertise and to plan either the long range or ex-Swissair short range ops and asked for an extension till March 2002.

This had resulted in Swissair soldiering on with reduced capacity (and consequent job losses) - which was NOT planned. It is for sure not a way to keep Swissair flying without paying its debtors.

As for those other airlines which have gone bust - well this just shows how much they relied on the enormous and misdirected sums of money pumped in by Swissair. The attempt to build a consortium of under-performing airlines was doomed from the start - because these airlines were also doomed and indeed would have faltered earlier had it not been for the association.

Nobody likes it but Pilots slagging off Pilots ain't going to help. What also won't help is impounding aircraft from associated but innocent companies and trying to squeeze money from where there isn't any.

[Hold at Saffa]

Few Cloudy
Well just to get it straight, Crossair was supposed to be running the whole shooting match - short and long range and Swissair was supposed to be defunct as of 28. October this year.

We are, and it is. Commercial responsibility has been Crossair's since Swissair ceased to exist at midnight October 28.
No doubt there will be numerous legal challenges to "New Crossair-cum-Swissair" and we'll all have sufficient opportunities to see whether the courts share your view!

Quite so, Hooking. Crossair has commenced legal procedings in the French courts claiming substantial damages resulting from the illegal, unwarranted and completely impropper seizing of HB-JAP at Nice.

Lets just see if Air Liberte (sic) has the stomach to protract their nuisance legal action when the facts under international (AND FRENCH :mad: ) law are revealed.

Depressingly, successful new endeavours attract parasites, and displays of hubris among failures are not uncommon, but I think you'll find the heat is turned up under whomever councels Air Liberte in legal matters before sunset today. ;)
http://www.airlinecrew.net/images/Airline_logos/crx.gif

[ 14 December 2001: Message edited by: Hold at Saffa ]

[Hold at Saffa]

When Hooking Fell's cage was rattled most recently, he wrote:-

The saddest part of it all is that some contributors to this forum, inlcuding yourself, Hold at Saffa, and Hunter 58, are still incapable of seeing the economic realities of today's world. A country the size of a cow pat with some 7 million people cannot be home to a major carrier, as it lacks the necessary domestic market.

http://www.airlinecrew.net/images/Airline_logos/crx.gif (http://www.project-phoenix.ch/en/project/businessplan.html)
Click on the logo. Information in English, German and French.

[ 14 December 2001: Message edited by: Hold at Saffa ]

[126.9]

Getting back to the point: most countries legal systems make provision for such action. Legal or not; it needs to be proven in a court of law. Thank God, it's an EU court!

[The Guvnor]

Hmmmm, Hooking Fell - were you talking about Ireland, perchance - which although its population is somewhat below the 7m mark and it is indeed cowpat shaped nevertheless manages to sustain a number of airlines including one of Europe's most successful carriers - Ryanair.

Of course, it's also home to that dog of an operation, Aer Lingus (I still say they should allow Bethune to buy them out ;) ) - it's rather odd that SR in their neverending search for the world's sickest (and cheapest) airlines never stopped off in Dublin ... but I digress.

Then of course there's Austria - also home to a rather splendit operation (Lauda Air), which regrettably was taken over by Austrian in a dirty tricks campaign that must have driven John King and Colin Marshall green with envy...

I guess the lesson is never judge the viability of a cowpat by its size! :eek: :eek:

[Ignition Override]

Whether the incident in France happened or not, one of our flight attendants years ago had a fully loaded 747-400 with pasengers aboard impounded! The company payroll computer was over two weeks late with her pay check. She contacted the local Wayne County Sherriff (whether an attorney was used or not, I don't know) near Detroit Airport in Michigan and he went to the aircraft and put some sort of lock on the nosegear. Supposedly, this was legal. A company executive sent her the long-overdue paycheck very quickly.

But I have no sympathy for such actions, especially when one country does that to an aircraft from another country, unless it is found to be in an unairworthy condition. Did Britain recently impound a foreign B-707 due to airworthiness issues?

[Hooking Fell]

Guvnor:

Your point re Ryanair taken, but - as opposed to Ireland - Switzerland is landlocked and to get anywhere within approx. 800 to 1,000 km you're better off taking your car. (In continental Europe, they actually drive their cars and don't blow them up outside pubs....).

The term "domestic market" as used in my post refers to a domestic route network that ultimately supports a hub (such as Zurich keeps aspiring to).

As for AUA, well....they are neither profitable nor do they have a massive long haul network. Their Lauda outfit has only a few long haul destinations. I do not think, however, that Lauda could be termed a great commercial success, either.
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[ 18 December 2001: Message edited by: Hooking Fell ]