Switzerland’s Crossair has frozen all hiring for an undetermined period, redoubled efforts to attract more business passengers, reduced frequencies on a number of marginal routes and moved smaller airplanes to others as the regional airline attempts to reverse one of the most difficult financial periods in its illustrious history. The measures have reduced available seat miles by 3 percent and improved its balance sheet by $18 million through the first half of this year, according to Crossair.
Nevertheless, Crossair announced a first-half operational loss of $10.8 million, just six days after Swissair Group–the regional’s parent company–erroneously reported a profit for its subsidiary of $22.5 million. A slightly embarrassed group spokesman attributed the discrepancy to different accounting procedures used by Crossair and Swissair. He stressed, however, that the entire group has turned the corner on the road to recovery, despite a reported group loss during the first period of $26 million.
Humbled by the fatal crash of a Saab 340B, labor disputes with pilot and flight attendant unions, and turmoil at the group level, Crossair posted an operational loss of $15 million last year.
