Swiss Airline Posts $93M 3Q Loss
Tue Nov 19, 8:31 AM ET Add Business - AP to My Yahoo!


BASEL, Switzerland (AP) - Switzerland's new flagship carrier airline Swiss said Tuesday it had posted a net loss of 135 million Swiss francs ($92.8 million) for the third quarter and plans to cut its work force by 2.9 percent.



Known formally as Swiss International Air Lines Ltd., the successor to the defunct Swissair and its regional carrier Crossair said it will cut 300 jobs and trim eight planes from its fleet of about 130 aircraft.

The company said sales for the quarter were 1.38 billion francs ($949 million). The airline began service in March so no comparison is available for a year ago. But Swiss said the result was "less than wholly satisfactory" because the period is usually the most profitable for the year.

The 3.48 million passengers carried represented 77 percent of capacity.

The job cuts — from a total full-time work force of about 10,500 — will be achieved mostly through attrition, a statement said. Of the total, 160 cuts will be in cabin crew and ground personnel. The remaining cuts will be among cockpit crews.

The company said it plans to ground one long-haul, one short-haul, three charter and three regional aircraft by the start of the 2003 summer flight schedule.

The airline currently flies to 126 destinations. It gave no details on how the schedule would be affected.

Part of the job losses will be offset by 200 new positions in information technology and technical services, the statement said.

The changes will bring savings of 400 million francs ($275 million) next year, the company said.

Swiss has said it intends to break even next year, but doubts had emerged about the feasibility of such a turnaround should Swiss maintain the size of its fleet.

edited to add:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021119/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_swiss_1

Swiss trims its wings but fails to impress critics

swissinfo November 19, 2002 6:04 PM




The job losses will affect cabin crew, ground personnel and pilots (swissinfo / SRI)
Switzerland’s national carrier “Swiss” is set to reduce its fleet, cut back its flight plan and axe 300 jobs – 140 of them among pilots.

But analysts say the measures designed to save the airline SFr400 million ($275 million) do not go far enough and will not guarantee the company’s future.



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"The aim is to break even in 2003, and to be profitable in 2004."
"I am disappointed these cuts are not sufficiently deep."
Swiss applies the brakes
Swiss reports lower-than-expected loss




Swiss chairman, Peter Bouw, told a media conference on Tuesday that the company’s third-quarter results were better than projected, but showed that Swiss still needed to improve overall profitability.

“We have to adapt the fleet to the new market environment, lower the costs substantially, improve the productivity and improve the quality of our service to our customers,” Bouw told swissinfo.

The company’s president and CEO, Andr� Dos�, said that while 300 jobs had to be cut, another 200 could be created through the operational changes.

“The main measures are we [cut] our fleet by a total of eight aircraft – three in the charter business and five in the scheduled services,” he said. “Unfortunately we have to reduce jobs by roughly 300. On the other hand we build up the technical department and IT services by a total of 200.”

Swiss also announced that because not all pilots had accepted a new labour contract it would continue to deal separately with former Crossair and ex-Swissair pilots.

While the government welcomed the announcement of a new strategy, aviation experts and unions condemned it.



There must be further cuts, there is no way round it.

Christoph Bohli, Bank Sarasin



Condemnation

Pilots from the former airline Crossair, which was subsumed into Swiss, were “furious” about plans to axe 140 cockpit jobs, a spokesman said. He said the pilots’ union would “immediately appeal” any redundancies announced.

The union representing cabin personnel, Kapers, said it feared the measures were just the beginning and would be followed by further cuts.

Analysts also predicted that Swiss would have to scale back its operations further if it was to achieve its declared goals of breaking even by 2003 and turning a profit in 2004.

“The management at Swiss are not yet rid of the old mindset; they want to retain everything and lose no jobs at all, if possible,” Christoph Bohli, an analyst at Bank Sarasin told swissinfo.


More at:

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=161&sid=1465159