SWISSAIR

byname of Swiss Air Transport Company Ltd., German Schweizerische Luftverkehr Ag, French Sa Suisse Pour La Navigation Arienne, Swiss airline formed on March 26, 1931, in the merger of Basler Luftverkehr (Balair, founded in 1925) and Ad Astra Aero (founded in 1919). In the late 20th century Swissair was serving a network of routes covering Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Ownership is shared by Swiss national and cantonal governments (24 percent) and private investors (76 percent). Headquarters are in Zrich. In 1981 the holding company Swissair Participation S.A. was created to run the nonairline subsidiaries, including hotel, restaurant, airline-catering, real-estate, travel-agency, and freight operations. From its predecessors in 1931 Swissair inherited routes within Switzerland and from Switzerland to the German Rhineland cities and to Lyon in France. In 1932 the airline adopted the Lockheed Orion monoplane, giving it the fastest express service between Zrich, Munich, and Vienna. Suspending scheduled services during World War II, it resumed regular flights in 1946 and by 1949 had begun transatlantic service between Switzerland and New York City. In the 1950s routes were extended to South America and the Far East, reaching Tokyo in 1961. Swissair is a prime member of an international airline group that shares aircraft procurement and maintenance. Swissair and SAS, the Scandinavian airline, initiated the cooperation in an agreement signed in 1958. The Dutch airline KLM joined in 1969, followed by the French independent airline, Union des Transports Ariens (UTA), in 1970. Together the four members are called the KSSU group (after their initials).