Crossair Ltd. Co. for Regional European Air Transport () was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

regional airline A regional airline is a general classification of airline which typically operates scheduled passenger air service, using regional aircraft, between communities lacking sufficient demand or infrastructure to attract mainline flights. In North ...

headquartered on the grounds of EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg in

Saint-Louis, Haut-Rhin Saint-Louis (; ; ) is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France. The inhabitants are called ''Ludoviciens''. History Following the conquest of the Sundgau and other parts of the Alsace by France in the course ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, near

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

, Switzerland. After taking over most of the assets of

Swissair Swissair (German language, German: Schweizerische Luftverkehr-AG; French language, French: S.A. Suisse pour la Navigation Aérienne, stylised as swissair) was the Flag carrier, national airline of Switzerland between its founding in 1931 and ban ...

following that airline's bankruptcy in 2002, Crossair was restructured to become

SWISS Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

.ch-aviation.com - Swiss
retrieved 11 March 2023

History

The airline was founded as a private company under the name ''Business Flyers Basel AG'' in 1975 by Moritz Suter. The name later changed to ''Crossair'' on 18 November 1978, before the beginning of scheduled services on 2 July 1979, with flights from

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

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and Klagenfurt. It was headquartered at

Zurich Airport Zurich Airport is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the airline hub, principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines. It serves Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, and, with its surface transport links, much of the rest o ...

in Kloten in 1985. It added

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

services for major shareholder

in November 1995. After parent company SAirGroup had to apply for a

debt restructuring Debt restructuring is a process that allows a private or public company or a sovereign entity facing cash flow problems and financial distress to reduce and renegotiate its delinquent debts to improve or restore liquidity so that it can continu ...

moratorium in October 2001, it became necessary to change the entire planning. On 31 March 2002,

ceased all operations while most of its assets were taken over by Crossair which then was subsequently restructured and rebranded to become Swiss International Air Lines.

Head office

Crossair was headquartered on the grounds of EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg in

, France, near

, Switzerland. In 2002 the name "Crossair" was replaced with "Swiss International Air Lines" on the head office building.

Destinations

Crossair flew from

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

and Zurich. Crossair was very interested in serving from several hubs and, therefore set up a multi-hub business plan. Crossair set up a Eurocross scheme from their Basel base to serve smaller airports and transfer their passengers to larger hubs with short transit times (only around 20 minutes) This helped Crossair link with partners, such as Swissair from Zurich. Crossair also operated flights between Swiss airports.

Fleet

Crossair has operated the following aircraft throughout its existence:

Accidents and incidents

*10 January 2000: Crossair Flight 498 crashed just after take-off from

. All 10 people aboard were killed. *24 November 2001: Crossair Flight 3597 crashed near

, killing 24 of 33 people aboard, including the former La Bouche lead singer

Melanie Thornton Melanie Janene Thornton (May 13, 1967 – November 24, 2001) was an American pop and dance music singer. She was the lead singer of the Eurodance group La Bouche from 1994 to 1999, alongside American rapper and backing vocalist Lane McCray. ...

and two of the three members of the German

Eurodance Eurodance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in Europe. It combines many elements of Hip-hop, rap, techno and Eurodisco. This genre of music is heavily influenced by the use ...

group Passion Fruit. The third member, Debby St. Maarten, sustained serious injuries but survived.

References

External links

Crossair Website - crossair.com
(Archive)
Crossair Website - crossair.ch
(Archive)

(Archive) {{Authority control Swissair Swiss companies established in 1975 Swiss companies disestablished in 2002 Defunct airlines of Switzerland Airlines established in 1975 Airlines disestablished in 2002 Companies based in Basel