Qualiflyer

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Qualiflyer was the name of Swissair frequent flyer program created in April 1992. When Swissair began acquiring stakes in other European airlines in 1998, Qualiflyer was extended to become their frequent flyer programs as well. This spawned the alliance known as The Qualiflyer Group. With the failure of Swissair in 2002, the group dissolved along with the program and a company was formed to give each former member airline an individual frequent-flyer program.

Currently Swiss International Air Lines, the successor company of Swissair, is participating in the Miles & More frequent flyer program with Lufthansa.

Contents

[edit] Beginnings

Qualiflyer was formed in April 1992 as Europe's first frequent-flyer program for Swissair. Originally, Swissair's partner airline Crossair and its high-end hotel chain Swissôtel also participated in the program. As one would expect, Qualiflyer's affiliation to one of the world-class airlines caused membership to grow quickly to 2 million members in the first eight years. After that, other airlines joined in the program, and the program received even larger amounts of membership.

[edit] The Qualiflyer Group

In 1998, Swissair, one of the more conservative European airlines, decided to have a hand at expansion. Instead of doing this by joining one of the new airlines alliances Star Alliance, SkyTeam and oneworld having just formed it decided to this by acquiring minority stakes in several airlines. Among these were Sabena, TAP Air Portugal, Air Europe, and LOT Polish Airlines. These airlines all came to participate in the Qualiflyer program. The Qualiflyer Group would ultimately be a contributing factor in Swissair's demise.

[edit] Qualiflyer and Swissair demise

When Swissair had purchased its stakes in the Qualiflyer Group's airlines, it had unknowingly begun its path to bankruptcy. Firstly, the acquisitions had been costly and many of the Qualiflyer Group's airlines had been financial losers. Sabena, the Qualiflyer Group's largest member behind Swissair, had only made a profit once in its entire history. Since it was a partial subsidiary of Swissair, Swissair was forced to make up for its losses. None of this helped the already financially-strapped Swissair. Keeping all of the group's members happy was a difficult and costly matter. Secondly, many of the Qualiflyer Group's airlines' managements didn't use the money they were given for its purposes. Also, Swissair demanded its subsidiaries operate Airbus fleets, and it was, therefore, required to pitch-in for these fleet makeovers. These factors added with 9/11 attacks and the subsequent downturn in air travel demand severely hurt Swissair and caused it to produce even more losses. By that time the next summer, Swissair would be grounded and that would spell the beginning of the end for Qualiflyer. When Swissair failed and Crossair took over, Loyalty Gate Ltd., formally Qualiflyer Loyalty Ltd., created three new programs: Swiss TravelClub which has been replaced by Lufthansa Miles & More, Privilege for SN Brussels Airlines the successor of Sabena, and Navigator for TAP Portugal now replaced by TAP Victoria.

[edit] Member airlines

[edit] The Qualiflyer Group logo and livery

The Qualiflyer Group logo resembled a blue globe surrounded by to swooping arms. The entire globe was encircled by ten stars symbolizing the ten member airlines. Airlines participating in the group were required to fly airplanes with a rather large Qualiflyer logo sticker applied. Swissair and Sabena principally had several airplanes painted with a blue underbelly with "The Qualiflyer Group" titles applied near the nose.

[edit] External links


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