Lufthansa to buy Swiss?
 

Apparently Swiss offered itself to BA which turned down the offer. They then approached Lufthansa which has reservations because Zurich would compete with their Munich hub.

Due to noise restrictions resulting from pressure from Germany, Swiss may have to route some long distance flights from Basel.

Better use my AA miles on LX ASAP.

I don't see much credibility for this story. Unless Lufthansa is completely out of its mind. In my opinion LH can only be interested in LXs passengers, but not in the entire airline. And they are definitely not interested in taking over ZRH as a hub. This would be a very bad strategy... but then the story comes from the SonntagsZeitung, one of the best newspapers in Switzerland, ahem http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

here is the newsstory (in german) from todays Zurich based Sonntagszeitung that brought this up
http://www.tagi.ch/dyn/news/wirtschaft/271830.html

Having a couple of flights booked with them (for personal travel), I would just like Swiss to stay in business over the next three months.

As nice as a takeover might sound (especially if it puts my miles in a nice safe, established alliance), is there a single airline on the planet that can actually afford to take over any other airline at the moment?

the question is, can swiss afford to stay in business (alone) ...

If we're talking merging rather than taking over, then a good number of the smaller, more vulnerable European airlines must be thinking about this at the moment. In truth though, what the market needs at the moment may well be less airlines.

I fly to NRT via ZRH a few weeks from now. I'll be most interested to see just how full the flight is.

Regards
I

You'd be quite surprised....

Teahan

tells us more... I just think that it does not make real economic sense. Although I don't want to see swiss go bankrupt, I would say that LH would profit from it much more than to take the company over and lose millions in the process.
But hey, everybody likes to buy stuff and buying is always easier than selling.

atlantic

[This message has been edited by atlantic (edited 04-13-2003).]

Swiss dément être à vendre

AVIATION. Les rumeurs se multiplient.

Le Temps
Lundi 14 avril 2003

Swiss chercherait à se vendre à Lufthansa, affirme la SonntagsZeitung, qui assure que d'autres discussions ont eu lieu entre le président du conseil d'administration de Swiss et le patron de British Airways Rod Eddington au début du mois de mars.

Jean-Claude Donzel, porte-parole de la compagnie, a démenti ces rumeurs dimanche: «Il n'y a pas eu et il n'y a pas de discussions avec Lufthansa et avec British Airways.» Selon une autre information, publiée cette fois par le SonntagsBlick, le Conseil fédéral devrait discuter la situation de Swiss le 30 avril, à la demande du Département de l'économie. Les porte-parole de plusieurs partis politiques se sont inquiétés ces derniers jours des mesures de restructuration prises par la compagnie, jugées timides et tardives.

Swiss a transporté 2,76 millions de passagers au premier trimestre 2003. De nouvelles mesures d'économies pourraient être annoncées avant l'assemblée générale des actionnaires, fixée au 6 mai.

--------------

To say it short, SWISS said they didn't speak with LH or BA about any selling project...

After the fail of project Alcazar (Swissair, KLM, SAS & AUA) Lufthansa was interested in a tight cooperation with Swissair.
Maybe Lufthansa has still the that kind of intentions with the smaller Swiss(air).

Somebody I would consider 100% reliable claims to have confirmation of the ongoing discussions. Pieter Bouw turns up at the gate in ZRH flying C Class to FRA, taking the taxi to the LH headquarters.... BTW, I am definitely not a person to spread rumours.

As much as I hate saying this, maybe it is the best solution? It doesn't look like things are getting better, the high cost base is there and Bouw himself said he does not expect yields to recover. The government probably won't put in another billion or two.

I personally would be for a radical Aer Lingus style U-Turn (EI was in a worse shape than LX about 1.5 years ago, they are now making a profit) but pride means that isn't going to happen.

Jeremiah


[This message has been edited by teahan (edited 04-13-2003).]

I remember reading shortly after SR's bankruptcy that in the late 80s and early 90s, when Swissair was doing great and Lufthansa badly, SR would have had enough money to easily purchase the whole of LH. How things change....

Jeremiah

[QUOTE]Originally posted by teahan:
[B] SR would have had enough money to easily purchase the whole of LH. How things change....

At that time SR was called a "flying bank"...it seems that UBS and CS misunderstood that :-)

LH would definitely be willing to spend money on LX. Just taking their market, killing long-haul and hubbbing some pax through basel and zurich for argument sake would be a very good move for LH. It would raise yield of tickets in that region and stengthen both FRA and MUN.
LH would have no serious competition to its south anymore.
Since similar stories are going around about SK, competition will be reduced to BA, AF and KL (also not doing too well).

Question is; How long is it going to take?

Does anybody have some other source on this story? I would be interested in knowing what the German press has to say.
Did a news.google.com search but nothing turned up... apart from the SK/LH rumors.