Swissair - Swissair Legacy

Swissair Legacy

In 2002 the successor airline Swiss International Air Lines was born. First called Swiss Air Lines, this Company was based on the former Crossair, and was basically a merger of Crossair and former Swissair employees, routes and aircraft. The Company Swissair continued to exist (in liquidation), but had no further assets. Due to legal problems with Swissair, the name had to be changed to Swiss International Air Lines

Swiss took over 26 longhaul and 26 medium haul Aircraft from the Swissair fleet and refurbished the liveries to turn it into the new Swiss fleet, together with the former Crossair Fleet consisting of Embraer 145, Saab 2000, MD-80 Series and Avro RJ.

After problems with the former Crossair pilot unions, who refused to accept different conditions than the former Swissair pilots within the same airline, a subsidiary called Swiss European Air Lines was founded which belongs 100% to Swiss International Air Lines.

In 2004, it appeared that Swiss was going to become a member of the Oneworld alliance. It had codeshares with Oneworld carriers British Airways, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Aer Lingus and Finnair, and held a strategic partnership and joint operation for all service to North America and AA-operated flights beyond U.S. gateways using American Airlines. Swiss started to terminate these codeshare agreements, but did not terminate the AA alliance. A theory emerged that Swiss was planning to use its partnerships, the AA alliance, and its partnership with British Airways, a strong supportive member of Oneworld, to join Oneworld itself.

However, in March 2005 Swiss was taken over by the German Lufthansa Group and Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the flag carrier of Germany. With the merger with Lufthansa, Swiss joined the Star Alliance, which Swissair planned to join before it failed. With this move, Swiss's frequent flyer club, Swiss TravelClub became part of Miles & More, which was originally the Lufthansa frequent flyer club. It acts as both airlines' frequent flyer programme, along with many other airlines.