Skycruise Switzerland
| Skycruise Switzerland | |
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| IATA code : | |
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| Founding: | 1996 |
| Operation stopped: | 2009 |
| Seat: |
Lindau ZH , Switzerland
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| Skycruise Switzerland ceased operations in 2009. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Skycruise Switzerland was a Swiss company based in Lindau ZH that operated airships .
The company was originally founded by Christian Schulthess on September 3, 1996 as Skyship Cruise . At that time, Skyship Cruise was the first customer of the Zeppelin NT , which was in development and which the company planned to use for tourism purposes in Switzerland from 1998. and actually wanted to operate the Zeppelin NT, which was still under development at the time. The development and approval of the airship was delayed, however, so that the company purchased a SkyShip 600 (N605SK) as an alternative in 2002 and operated it in the first season. In 2003 the ship was also on its way for sightseeing flights over Switzerland.
Skycruise often refers to its airships themselves as zeppelins , but they are impact airships .
The company now owns two SkyShip 600 B airships. One of them is the former training airship “Charly” from Cargolifter AG , which was bought in 2003 from the bankruptcy portfolio. "Charly" was because all the extension or re-issuance of the German Approval (D-LCLA) and the flight operation in the area around Berlin by the German Federal Aviation Authority had been denied to get the US Food and Drug N601SK in spring 2004 and was the summer of 2004 in Buochs / Switzerland for sightseeing flights. A German subsidiary Skycruise Germany had been founded especially for the planned sightseeing flight operations near Berlin, based in Wildau . Both airships had previously wintered together in the Cargolifter hangar .
In the summer of 2004, both airships were then used over Athens at the Olympic Games . They were used for police surveillance, but also for the transmission of television images.
After the end of his mission in Athens, “Charly” (N601SK) was dismantled and transported to the USA by ship. There it should be reassembled and then transferred to Mexico to be used for aerial advertising and sightseeing flights. Apparently the airship is still packed in the USA (as of September 2005).
The first ship was supposed to return to Switzerland after the Olympic Games in September 2004 and make tours there, but the authorities refused to grant an operating license. After wintering in Athens in April 2005, the first ship was brought to the Zeppelin airship hangar in Friedrichshafen for an annual inspection. On May 6, 2005, after some back and forth with the Federal Office for Civil Aviation (FOCA), it received the provisional Swiss HB-QIZ approval, valid until the end of October 2005. Before that, it had the American registration N605SK. Since then, tours have been offered with him from Buochs airfield . On July 23, 2005, a wedding ceremony was held on board .
According to press reports, the main problem for the licensing difficulties with the German and Swiss aviation authorities since flight operations began is not the airship itself, but above all formal obstacles, such as the competent supervision by the aviation authorities, which do not have any airship specialists in Switzerland, or in Germany the lack of evidence of suitable infrastructure for maintenance and repairs, i.e. an airship hangar with a corresponding workshop. There were also problems with the Association for the Protection of the Population around Buochs Airfield (SBFB), which wanted to restrict operations not least for reasons of noise protection.
According to a press release in the Schwäbische Zeitung online on October 28, 2005, the airship was expected in the Friedrichshafen Zeppelin Hall on that day. It wintered there with the only Zeppelin NT stationed there at the time.
On May 13, 2006, flight operations in Buochs were resumed. In the middle of the year it was announced that the airship had to be registered again in the USA, since 1.7. new European requirements could not be economically implemented. The ID is again N605SK. From the end of July of that year, a European tour was carried out as an advertising medium for Škoda Auto . At the end of 2006 the airship was in England, where it was in hangar no. 1 was serviced in Cardington . From there it started on November 9, 2006 under the name "Spirit of Dubai" towards Dubai to the Palm Islands . According to Skycrusie, it should return to Europe in mid-2007.
In summer 2009 the skyship with the serial number 5 was parked in the Zeppelin Hall in Friedrichshafen.
bankruptcy
According to the commercial register , an order from the bankruptcy judge of the Pfäffikon district court on March 31, 2009 was issued on Skycruise Switzerland Ltd. the bankruptcy opened. With the ruling of the bankruptcy judge on June 4, 2009, the bankruptcy proceedings were discontinued due to lack of assets and the company was deleted on September 15, 2009.
Bankruptcy was also opened on March 31, 2009 by the bankruptcy judge of the Pfäffikon District Court on Skyship Cruise Ltd , which is registered with SWITCH and on the website skycruise.ch last updated on April 6, 2009. Here, too, with the ruling of the bankruptcy judge on May 12, 2009, the bankruptcy proceedings were discontinued due to lack of assets and the company was deleted on August 20, 2009.
Individual evidence
- ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung (April 1, 1997, p. 45): First series airship goes to Switzerland
- ^ Protection association of the population around Buochs airfield (SBFB) Chronological development December 5, 2003. Retrieved November 9, 2017 .
- ↑ Commercial register of the Canton of Zurich ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Commercial register of the Canton of Zurich ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
