Airlines of the Jet Age by R.E.G. Davies

Author:R.E.G. Davies [Davies, R.E.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-944466-07-7
Publisher: Smithsonian
Published: 2016-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

The SAir Group

In 1997, Philippe Bruggisser replaced Loepfe, and Swissair appeared to be flexing its financial muscles, even though, in 1996, it had lost $341 million, in spite of increased sales. It restructured its corporate base, establishing the SAir Group, as a controlling parent of Swissair, Crossair, and SABENA. In November 1998, the third largest airline in Germany, Lufttransport Unternehmen (L.T.U.), was added by another 49.9% SAir stake purchase. In April of that year, the inter-airline trend was extended by the formation of the Qualiflyer Group, adding Air Portugal, the French A.O.M., and the Turkish airline to the club. But this was more of a marketing initiative, rather than any exchange of shares.

Swissair’s solid reputation for reliability and safety had been badly affected during the same year, when, on 3 September, one of its MD-11s had crashed into the sea off the coast of Nova Scotia, after taking off from New York. The cause was judged to be a fault in the wiring of the entertainment electrical circuit, although the only warning to the crew was smoke in the cockpit, and the disintegration of the aircraft was instantaneous. 229 passengers and crew lost their lives.

Back in Zurich, the SAir Group was strengthening its position. In October 1999, the Atlantic Excellence club was disbanded, while SAir took a 37.5% interest in LOT Polish Airlines, and 20% in South African Airways. It transferred most of Swissair’s Geneva-based flights to Crossair, which took over most of the routes to the Mediterranean. On 26 May 2000, SAir decided to increase its stake in SABENA to 85%, with the Belgian government holding the remaining 15%. In compensation, the German holding in L.T.U. was sold to the Rewe retail giant. By the end of the year, the Group strengthened its interests in France by similar purchases of control of Air Liberte, Air Littoral, to add to A.O.M. This attempt to form a major French airline was seriously misjudged, partly because all the smaller French airlines were losing money, and traffic on the short-haul routes was being eroded by the success of the T.G.V. (Train a Grande Vitesse) which, for example, on 10 June 2001, cut the 300-mile train time from Paris to Marseilles from 4hr 20m to 2hr 55m.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.