ZURICH: Beleaguered airline Swissair has announced the line-up of
its corporate communications arm ahead of its merger with sister group
Crossair next year.
A restructure, led by Swissair Group corporate communications chief
Rainer Meier, has seen the departure of more than one quarter of the
original PR team and the creation of a eight-strong division to run
comms until March, when Swissair will fold into Crossair.
Meier, who took over from Beatrice Tschanz in May (PRWeek, 18 May), has
confirmed he will be supported by a team of up to seven, including Erwin
Scharer, Urs Peter Naef, Jean-Claude Donzel, Christine Buhler and
Claudia Imhasly.
Spokesman Scharer said the division will work their transitional
contracts until the end of next April.
'All the people in corporate communications have been dismissed and
about a quarter of the team got new contracts to cover the closing down
period of the old Swissair,' said Scharer.
A team of PROs will lead the recently formed group of smaller companies
within Swissair, which include Atraxis, Avireal, Cargologic and
Swisscargo and Swissport.
Crossair, Europe's largest regional airline, is being formed from
Swissair, which filed for protection from its creditors last month, and
will become Switzerland's national airline.
Crossair's comms team is headed by Ruth Zueblin, who it is understood
will remain in post next year.
At Swissair, former journalist Meier has been leading all corporate PR
through the demise of Swissair since his promotion from deputy PR chief
earlier this year.
Meier's immediate task after his appointment to the top PR post was to
oversee all comms during the rebrand of the group's corporate name from
SairGroup to Swissair, announced in April.
