Swissair – the Ambassador of the Swiss Cross

Original Swissair poster by Eugen Lenz, designed on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Swissair, expressing the already in 1956 extremely close connection of Switzerland with Swissair and vice versa. The Swiss population was so proud of the airline, which had been flying high since around 1952, that it had a virtually identity-forming function – which in turn made Swissair so self-confident that, as the slogan “Swissair is showing up the Swiss Cross all over the world” proves, it saw itself even as an ambassador for Switzerland. It would never have occurred to anyone, even decades later, that it would end the way it did in 2001. Parallels with the Credit Suisse case come to mind.