BASEL, Switzerland (AFP) - The survival of loss-making airline Swiss has been assured by a crucial multi-million dollar credit facility, the company's financial director said.
Ulrich Svensson said in an interview with finance magazine Finanz und Wirtschaft that the company's liquidity problems were now behind it and that its scope for manoeuvre was sufficient in the short term.
Swiss announced on Friday that the credit facility worth 325 million Swiss francs (210 million euros, 258 million dollars) had been agreed with an international banking syndicate.
While he said that the pressure on the troubled airline had now been lifted for the next few months, Svensson also added that any new investment would require "supplementary means."
Swiss had plans to replace "when it could" short haul aircraft "which represents a major investment."
The banking syndicate led by Britain's Halifax Bank of Scotland (100 million Swiss francs) also includes Barclays Capital (55 million Swiss francs), Switzerland's Credit Suisse (75 million Swiss francs), UBS (75 million Swiss francs) and the Zurcher Kantonalbank (20 million Swiss francs).
The company said on Friday that it had not secured the long awaited credit line itself and still needed to gain the consent of "various third parties", which it did not identify.
Swiss had been seeking the credit line for more than year and had long regarded it as a key part of its attempt to raise its cash-starved business back into profit.
In August Swiss announced it had managed to cut its first-half net loss by about 90 percent but warned that spiralling fuel costs were hampering a turnaround, despite increasing passenger travel.
Months of cost-cutting brought the ailing airline's net loss down to 33 million Swiss francs (22 million euros, 26 million dollars) in the first six months of 2004, against loss of 333 million Swiss francs a year ago.