Swissair (official name “Swissair” Swiss Air Transport Company’s shares ) based in Kloten was from 1931 until its bankruptcy proceedings in October 2001 and liquidation in March 2002, the national airline of Switzerland . In the wake of the collapse of its parent company SAirGroup was based on the regional airline Crossair , the new Swiss airline Swiss was founded. Today for Lufthansa owned Swiss uses part of the aircraft and serves a variety of routes of the former Swissair.
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In March, Mario Corti was Chairman and interim CEO of the SAirGroup. He had in April, an annual loss of 2.885 billion francs reported what was due to the high provisions for exiting from the airline holdings. A Task Force was set up scenarios to improve the financial situation and the synergies between Swissair and Crossair to develop. The hotel chain “Swissôtel” was sold for around 410 million francs to repay loans to banks. In the summer of 2001, the largest loss-makers in the group, AOM and Air Liberté were sold. These additional funds worth hundreds of millions were needed. Due to additional expenditures for Sabena, the equity ratio fell by 30 June 2001 to 2.55% and the liquid assets to 550 million francs.
Swissair was trying to sell two of the airline-related subsidiaries, but failed after the September 11th September 2001 these attempts. The attacks plunged the entire aviation industry in the biggest crisis in its 100-year history and led to a massive devaluation of all assets .
On 17 September 2001, Corti, the Swiss Federal Department of Finance with that SAirGroup could be insolvent in early October, and applied for a federal guarantee in the amount of one billion francs. A week later, the project “Swiss Air Lines’ was introduced. It saw a merger of Swissair and Crossair Crossair under the guidance of Chief André Dosé with severely reduced route network. On 22 September informed Mario Corti, the Bundesrat , that the cash would soon be exhausted. The Federal Council decided for policy reasons, however, against the issuance of a federal guarantee.
On the weekend of the 29th and 30 September 2001 under the direction of the two major Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse , the project ” Phoenix elaborated “and passed, which provided for the acquisition of shares held by the SAirGroup Crossair shares by banks. [1] The subsidiary Crossair, then had a portion of the fleet and the Swissair brand borne by the SAirGroup. The aim was to create a new build of exempt financial legacy airline. The consortium of banks agreed on the condition to take over the shares of Crossair at the market price if the sale proceeds only until 3 October will be used for airline operations. Furthermore, Crossair was a working capital amounting to 550 million francs and a capital of 350 million francs equipped.
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