Swiss International Airlines was formed in 2001, when Swissair, former flag carrier of Switzerland, went bankrupt. Swissair’s biggest creditors, Credit Suisse and UBS, sold a part of Swissair's assets to Crossair, the regional counterpart to the transatlantic Swissair. Crossair later changed its name to Swiss, and the new national airline started its operations officially on March 31, 2002.
Swiss International Airlines is the premier airline of Switzerland, with its main hub at Zurich Kloten Airport. The airline has a regional airline subsidiary as well, called Swiss European Air Lines. This carrier has its own air operator certificate and operates the non-Airbus fleet. Headquartered in Basel, it is a subsidiary of the German airline “Lufthansa”. However, Lufthansa continues to maintain Swiss as a separate brand.
The fleet consists of Airbus A319-112, Airbus A320-214, Airbus A321-111, Airbus A330-223, Airbus A330-343X, Airbus A340-313X, and Avro RJ100 "Jumbolino". It flies to Canada, US and Brazil and among the European destinations, it covers Germany, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Serbia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK and Luxemburg. In, Africa it serves Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Cameroon and Tanzania. In Asia, Swiss International has scheduled flights to China, Japan, Thailand, Cyprus, Israel, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and UAE. In India, it flies to Delhi and Mumbai.