BA nie dogadalo sie ze Swiss ...

IP: *.u.mcnet.pl 03.06.04, 09:14
British Airways alliance with Swiss collapses
By Kevin Done, Aerospace Correspondent
Published: June 2 2004 22:05 | Last Updated: June 3 2004 7:43


The commercial alliance between British Airways and Swiss International
Airlines collapsed on Thursday after the two airlines failed to agree on how
to integrate their frequent flier programmes into the executive club.


Swiss said: "The sizeable cost of such an integration and the drawbacks it
would bring currently outweigh its projected mid-to-long-term benefits. As
the abandonment of the proposed integration also means that the bilateral
agreement between Swiss and British Airways cannot be put into practise,
Swiss is unable to join the Oneworld alliance at the present."

Last September the airlines announced an ambitious accord that was supposed
to lead to the struggling Swiss carrier joining the Oneworld global airline
alliance led by BA and American Airlines.

But a condition for Swiss's entry to Oneworld was completion of a bilateral
commercial pact with BA and in recent weeks the two have been unable to agree
on a key element - the merger of the airlines' frequent flyer programmes.

As part of the pact with BA, Swiss's present frequent flyer programme, Swiss
TravelClub, was supposed to be integrated into BA's Executive Club. But since
the deal was concluded there has been a shake-up of top management at the
Swiss airline.

The new team, led by Christoph Franz, has become increasingly reluctant to
hand over to BA the details of its frequent flyers, including key business
travellers. A sticking point has been the inability of the sides to agree on
the price Swiss would pay BA for picking up the liabilities of unspent
frequent flyer miles in the Swiss programme.

Swiss's failure to enter Oneworld is a setback to its recovery strategy.
Membership of one of the world's three leading alliances - including Star,
led by Lufthansa and United Airlines, SkyTeam led by Air France and Delta Air
Lines, and Oneworld - has been a long-held goal. The airline said last year
that its membership of the Oneworld alliance could bring about SFr100m
(£43.6m) in extra annual revenues.

Swiss was formed out of the 2001 collapse of Swissair through a SFr2.7bn
rescue by the Swiss government, several cantons and leading industrial
groups, banks and private investors. It started flying at the end of March
2002 but struggled from the outset with too much capacity and a network too
big for its available market.

It is pushing through a third restructuring package to cut annual costs by
SFr1.6bn but it has struggled for many months to reach agreement on extra
bank financing of up to SFr500m.

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