Berlinflyer From Germany, joined Jan 2005, 94 posts, RR: 0 Posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 17 hours ago) and read 1526 times:
Currently Swiss seems to make plans to put their european operations into a separate company. Swiss is constantly loosing ground against LCCs in Zurich and of course against other big carriers pulling passengers out of Switzerland, especially Lufthansa. Do you think they can survive on their own? Or where will they head to? Any ideas what could happen next?
HBIHLtoEZE From Switzerland, joined Aug 2004, 280 posts, RR: 2 Reply 1, posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 17 hours ago) and read 1480 times:
...this is why Smartwings, SkyEurope, Germania Express and Easyjet left ZRH, and Helvetic only performs well on routes to Southern shores (having given up AMS and BRU for instance).
It is not only the low cost carriers, it is the low prices in the airline industry as a whole that threaten the major carriers such as Swiss.
Just take LH: their regional fleet is outsourced already. Lufthansa Cityline is a different company than its parent - LH mostly operates with Cityline aircraft out of ZRH.
What Swiss will do: outsource the regional fleet, thus lowering costs and growing again, flying to crucial long haul destinations on a daily basis again.
(Something they should have done a long time ago, it seems reason returns, a good sign, if you ask me)
cheers
Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
FLYSSC From France, joined Aug 2003, 7313 posts, RR: 61 Reply 2, posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 17 hours ago) and read 1424 times:
They've just announced on TV that SWISS was in a very bad situation and that the quotation of Swiss shares were suspended.
They said also that SWISS could shortly close some routes and retire from service and/or sell several aircraft.
It seems that SWISS continued to make the same errors that lead SWISSAIR to death...
Berlinflyer, as you said, LH is taking a lot of PAX from ZRH, and AF does the same from GVA. After Swissair decided to transfer all its long haul flights from/to ZRH, AF organized a quasi-shuttle, with 1O daily flights (weekdays), to/from GVA to feed its CDG's Hub...
Panamair From United States of America, joined Oct 2001, 4583 posts, RR: 26 Reply 5, posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 1300 times:
The situation is not as precarious as a year ago - they actually made an operating profit in Q3 2004 (albeit that is the strongest quarter traditionally). However, they are by no means out of the woods yet and still need to find a medium and long term solution. At least they have a little bit more breathing room now to concentrate on a slightly longer term view instead of worrying about day-to-day survival. Cash at end of Q3 stood at CHF361 million not including a credit facility concluded at the end of Q3.
HB-IWC From Greece, joined Sep 2000, 4414 posts, RR: 76 Reply 6, posted (8 years 4 months 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 1156 times:
What Swiss will do: outsource the regional fleet, thus lowering costs and growing again, flying to crucial long haul destinations on a daily basis again.
(Something they should have done a long time ago, it seems reason returns, a good sign, if you ask me)
For starters, they would need to get the equipment to once again increase key longhaul destinations to daily services and thereby restoring at least some commercial value for premium traffic to these services. Meanwhile, key longhaul flights between Zurich and LAX, GRU, JNB, BKK, SIN, HKG and NRT and lately even the popular and high yielding GVA-JFK service remain on a reduced schedule.
However, it doesn't appear as if Swiss is looking at building its longhaul fleet. A plan to acquire 3 extra A343 airframes seems to have been abandoned, so the only means of increasing frequencies to certain destinations seems to be reducing others.
Apart from restoring daily service to some key longhaul destinations, Swiss might also consider a return to China and Delhi, where other European airlines seem to be in a continual process of adding service, but which was abandoned by Swiss nearly 2 years ago, in a move that will remain a mystery to any informed onlooker.
Still, as long a not extra widebody equipment is made available, all of this seems unlikely to realize...
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From Germany, joined Jan 2005, 94 posts, 
From Switzerland, joined Aug 2004, 280 posts, 
From France, joined Aug 2003, 7313 posts, 
From United States of America, joined Oct 2001, 4583 posts, 
From Greece, joined Sep 2000, 4414 posts, 
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