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Currently, the Swiss airline is on track in terms of consuming its Corona loan. “By the end of the year we will still have more than a billion francs from the loan,” Swiss chief Thomas Klühr said Thursday night at the forecast meeting of the economic research center KOF.
He is currently convinced that Switzerland will not need another loan, says Klühr. When applying for the loan from the Swiss government, the company presented a business plan that included a cushion. “So far, we have done better than we present on this stage,” Klühr said. Swiss is making an effort to repay the loan as soon as possible.
“Decisive what happens in spring”
But the airline director made it clear that the subsequent course of the pandemic plays an important role in this. “It is crucial what happens in the spring and if the reserves come back in,” he said. If you don’t return to 50 percent of the pre-crisis level in spring and summer, especially on long-haul flights, it will be “difficult.”
In the spring, after tough negotiations, parliament approved a 1.5 billion franc crown aid loan for Switzerland to guarantee the airline’s liquidity. 85 percent of this is guaranteed by the federal government. In return, the entire share capital of Swiss, which belongs to the Lufthansa Group, serves as collateral.
Testing required instead of quarantine
Switzerland is still suffering greatly from the Corona crisis because the situation is uncertain around the world and you cannot fly to many destinations, as Klühr emphasized. “The world is still closed to us,” he said.
The demand reacts immediately to travel restrictions, which are not coordinated at all and cannot be planned. Therefore, Klühr believes that mandatory testing rather than mandatory quarantine is much more convenient to achieve recovery in tourism.
“That would also be fairer compared to other modes of transport,” Klühr said. Because when traveling by plane, it is easy to understand where a person is coming from. On the other hand, this is much more difficult with other travel options, such as by train or car. (SDA)
