Abrelosojos From Venezuela, joined May 2005, 3178 posts, RR: 24 Posted (3 years 10 months 2 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 2280 times:
Just watched this movie in Switzerland re: the grounding of SR. Really well made and I am sure will be a hit in Switzerland. Check it out. I am sure an English sub-titled DVD will be out soon.
FlyKev From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2006, 1069 posts, RR: 1 Reply 1, posted (3 years 10 months 2 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 2225 times:
AIRLINERS.NET CREW FORUM MODERATOR
From what i can rememebr of my German skills, I could understand the idea of the trailer. Sounds quite good, worth a watch definatly, providing an english s/t versions avaliable.
The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only
Chiguire From Venezuela, joined Sep 2004, 2002 posts, RR: 23 Reply 2, posted (3 years 10 months 2 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 2199 times:
OK, abrelosojos, let's do something in Venezuela for VIASA.
No, in serious. This shows what kind of a national symbol Swissair was for the Swiss. And it is a shame that such kind of bad management killed Swissair. But the Swiss need to face it: Swissair was oversized in the last years. Such a small country (sorry) with such a huge airline ! And competition of lagre airlines around the country growing day by day. The management forgot to downsize in time.
YukonTrader From Switzerland, joined May 2005, 207 posts, RR: 8 Reply 4, posted (3 years 10 months 2 weeks 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 2150 times:
Thanks for mentionning it here! I've seen the media preview a few days ago, and found it rather well done too. It's pretty difficult to do a "business thriller" the end of which you know already, but the film manages to keep the storyline hot for most of the 2:15 hrs.
Although I may say that the the separation between the good and bad guys is a bit too much "black & white" for me, simplifying some complex characters too much...
From an enthusiast's point of view, the trailer at the end of the film is a must see as it is made up from excerpts of lots many historic documetaries from the Swissair archives: CV-990 landing in HKG, DC-3 and DC-4 air-to-air, B747 delivery, smoky DC-8-32 take-offs, Convairliners and MD-11s in flight over the alps...
A French synchronised version btw. will be out in mid-February, along with the sub-titled version in Italian. A CD is in the pipeline as well for later on, and I guess there might well be an English subtitled version?
Stoney From Switzerland, joined Jan 2005, 198 posts, RR: 4 Reply 5, posted (3 years 10 months 2 weeks 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 2052 times:
Quoting Chiguire (Reply 2): This shows what kind of a national symbol Swissair was for the Swiss.
Well, that's exactly how it was for most of the people, probably coming from Swissair being the only airline in Switzerland, seen as the the messengers of Switzerland throughout the world. For many people they were the ones representing the quality of Swiss products.
I haven't seen it yet, but I am definitely looking forward to it.
greetz
Stoney
BAZL - Bundesamt gegen Zivilluftfahrt - royally screwing around with swiss aviation
Pilatusguy From Switzerland, joined Jan 2004, 315 posts, RR: 0 Reply 10, posted (3 years 10 months 2 weeks 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 1720 times:
I just came back from the theatre - great movie, strong emotions and a very good story about how the whole SR grounding affected families.
Most definitely a "must see"!
Quoting YukonTrader (Reply 4): Although I may say that the the separation between the good and bad guys is a bit too much "black & white" for me, simplifying some complex characters too much...
agree to that, but it's probably very close to the thruth!
RJ100 From Russia, joined Nov 2000, 4039 posts, RR: 51 Reply 11, posted (3 years 10 months 5 days 19 hours ago) and read 1493 times:
I went to the movie theatre yesterday with some people who were involved in this tragedy.
The movie is quality wise well made (at least for a Swiss movie) and it is a good entertainment. The movie however does not tell the full truth, it is more or less a tribute to Mr. Corti (no wonder since the movie producer is a relative of him). The movie also blames the banks not giving cash to Swissair. What they are not telling is that UBS told Mr. Corti (before he accepted the new job) that he will not get money from them until the largest problems are solved. Corti new from the first day that he will not get the money. He in fact did not even ask for financial transparency in the Swissair company. That's why every other day new billion losses were released. And without financial transparency, noone gives money. It's simple as that.
Also Corti is put in the role as the man who gives everything for the company, even giving up his position at Nestle, saying "why should I give up this position at Nestle where I earn good money?" " To save Swiss aviation", Ospel says...
What they are not saying in the movie is that Corti earned approx. 12 mio. Swiss Francs for his Swissair job and moved to the US soon after the bankruptcy...
Also, they blame Crossair that they have not accepted Swissair tickets when Swissair went bust. Again, what they are not saying is that Swissair at this time had debts of a few hundred mio. CHF for Crossair wet leases. Crossair would have lost additional millions with the unpaid SR tickets. Crossair would have gone bust too if they would have accepted the SR tickets.
There are many such mistakes (on purpose of course) in that movie which makes this movie bad.
Cheers,
RJ100
[Edited 2006-02-02 10:04:14]
Next: Basel-Düsseldorf-St. Petersburg-Düsseldorf-Basel on Lufthansa
RJ100 From Russia, joined Nov 2000, 4039 posts, RR: 51 Reply 12, posted (3 years 10 months 5 days 14 hours ago) and read 1379 times:
By the way, what most people do not know is that Mario Corti and Swissair had, on this 2nd October, a few bank accounts with money on it. But they did not know about it. With this money they could have flown another 2-3 days... This poor guy, together with financial chief Mrs. Fouse completely lost orientation in this chaos. So the grounding is definitely not UBS' fault.
Regards,
RJ100
Next: Basel-Düsseldorf-St. Petersburg-Düsseldorf-Basel on Lufthansa
YukonTrader From Switzerland, joined May 2005, 207 posts, RR: 8 Reply 13, posted (3 years 10 months 5 days 11 hours ago) and read 1257 times:
Hi RJ100
Quoting RJ100 (Reply 12): So the grounding is definitely not UBS' fault.
I agree with many of your points - which is also why I posted earlier that I did not agree on the simple black/white scheme of the good guys and the bad guys.
The grave had been dug over a long, long period, and it just became deeper over time. To give the movie some tribute, it basically gets two of the key factors right, when it refers a) to the Swiss' vote of "Nay" in the public referendum about joining the EWR which hampered the legal situation of Swissair vis-à-vis the EU carriers, and b) to the tabloïd and (subsequent) political opposition to the Alcazar-merger. In the 12-minute opening trailer, the movie elaborates that these two political decisions were the main reason behind the subsequent and fatal "hunter strategy" of Swissair under which consisted in acquiring ailing EU carriers in order to grow at any cost.
What the movie also shows pretty well is that the frantic and desparate attempts to save it were bound to fail simply due to the fact that no one of the (new) management under Mario Corti had an overview of where the Swissair Group actually stood. But the movie is too simple in showing him and his crew as tragic heroes that were simply overrun by an avalanche of financial obligations. After all, the management is the one and only authority responsible for avoiding such a situation - and they failed.
The movie ultimately blames 9/11 for the grounding, namely in the scene were Mario Corti finally decides to sell off Gate Gourmet in order to generate desperately needed cash, only to be told by the advisors (in the bank) "what a pitty: Had you sold them in spring as we suggested, we'd have given you 5 Billion CHF (~3.5 Billion €) - today it's worth less than 10% of that, and we're not interested anymore!"
The question remains whether the two leading banks really failed to see that despite the downturn in global aviation due to 9/11, Gate Gourmet was a profitable and well-positionned asset that would quickly regain in value, or whether they simply wanted to "pull the plug" on its parent company. If you, as a investment banker, get the offer to buy an asset with a perspective from one of your major corporate customers deadlocked in financial troubles, then you might try to negotiate a very favourable price - from your point of view, of course, as the offerer needs your $$$, €€€, or CHFs desperately - but you will most certainly not shrug it off and tell them "too bad, the asset's value has momentarily fallen and we're out for good." Unless of course you have an alternate plan for the future that does not include this obviously ailing corporate customer of yours whose credit ranking is below junk for you... And don't get me wrong here: I agree fully that this is nothing else than an economic decision any lender of money will have to make.
The movie sums up what a considerable number of people in Switzerland do think about the failure of Swissair, and the film also states that it is "fiction based on real characters and authentic transcripts" - as interpreted by the director, like you stated correctly. But regardless of the public perception it is the task of the competent Courts - and only of the competent Courts - to judge the responsibilities of the Swissair board, its management, and other actors involved.
RJ100 From Russia, joined Nov 2000, 4039 posts, RR: 51 Reply 14, posted (3 years 10 months 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 1171 times:
Very good post Lukas.
You are mentioning an interesting point in your last sentences. We (me and my fellow cinema visitors) discussed this point yesterday as well. And one needs to ask the question if this movie is not making a decision prior to the court decisions (if there will be any...). I mean the movie is popular, it MAKES opinions although they leave out many facts! This is, in my opinion, very dangerous. The public believes something that is not fully true and it puts a certain pressure on the judges.
And what is even more dangerous, the government is subsidying this movie (even though everyone knows that the producer is a relative of Mr. Corti). Of course, they say it's a "fiction". But then they should leave out the real names of the people involved in my opinion.
Regards,
Thomas
Next: Basel-Düsseldorf-St. Petersburg-Düsseldorf-Basel on Lufthansa
YukonTrader From Switzerland, joined May 2005, 207 posts, RR: 8 Reply 15, posted (3 years 10 months 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 1134 times:
Thanks Thomas,
I have enough trust that our judges can and will withstand this pressure - my principal concern would be similar to yours, namely that the proceedings could take the Court into a dead-end road, ending without a material decisicion. This is definitely a risk for cases with a complex economic background.
Anyways, some people have already made up their minds about the responsibility, and some more will do so after seeing the film. Life teaches us that a number of them will accept it if they stand corrected by the Court's findings later on, but a substantial part will still not listen to what a Court verdict finds if it contradicts their own "conclusions" (buzz word: conspiracy theories).
Even if the names had been changed for the movie: I guess we'd probably all figure out pretty quickly which entities and which representatives thereof were really addressed by their ficticious counterparts. The Swissair failure is simply too prominent with everybody here in Switzerland...
Now time will have to tell, I think. Cheers, Lukas
Lsgg From Switzerland, joined Mar 2005, 572 posts, RR: 13 Reply 16, posted (3 years 10 months 4 days 11 hours ago) and read 1016 times:
Interesting facts !
I've read the book "Der Fall der Swissair", which contains an incredible number of details, but not some you said. That's not astonishing if we don't find them on the film which is based on that book. However I don't think his writer (Rene Luchtiger) is a relative of M. Corti or whoever connected in Swissair. Anyway that book show that M. Corti had many responsibilities in the grounding
What is the main objective of that film ?
According to Michael Steiner (director of the film) To learn with the past mistakes
Sponsor Message: 
From Venezuela, joined May 2005, 3178 posts, 
From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2006, 1069 posts, 
From United States, joined Jan 2000, 1815 posts, 
From Switzerland, joined May 2005, 207 posts, 
From Russia, joined Nov 2000, 4039 posts, 
Printer friendly format 
