Tango

If this goes through, will that mean the end of the AA codeshares on Swiss?

crAAzy

Not so fast ... I heard AA was planning on selling all TWA assests and the St. Louis hub to Southwest so it could raise enough cash to buy Swiss and create it's own European hub. This will also solve the who BA/AA LHR issue and allow it's customers to earn milage with BA on tansatlantic flights.

New airline will be named Swiss-American and Swiss-American connection.

AAlton

No cabotage in Switzerland?

marlborobell

And how much domestic flying do you think there is in Switzerland? It's a small country with an awesome rail system. Not that I know for sure, but I'd guess that if there are cabotage laws then any foreign owner of Swiss could sell off the domestic rights to some local businessman to operate as a feeder airline. (Call it, let's see, Crossair? ) I'd be very surprised if anything bigger than an RJ flies domestic in Switzerland -- even on GVA-ZRH.

On the other hand, historically rights to routes to/from Switzerland have been fairly heavily regulated by the Swiss government -- easyJet had a boatload of trouble trying to start up a GVA-BCN route, for instance. So there may be terms in Swiss's route licenses saying that they are null and void if it gets a foreign owner. But realistically I'm not convinced that the government over there is as bothered about having a locally owned airline as the US government is.

UserMark

Sounds kind of cheesy.

RonC

It sounds like this deal has a lot of holes in it, like swiss cheese.

Ron