Wednesday 19 February 2014

The Swiss Airforce - Please leave a message.

On Monday morning the hijacked Ethiopian airplane entered Italian airspace and was duly met by an escort of Italian air force jets. The Italians passed the escort over to the French on Monday morning as the plane entered French airspace and then as the plane approached Swiss airspace, its final destination being Geneva/Genf, the French attempted to hand the escort over to the Swiss airforce.

Unfortunately it was by now only about 6 am and it turns out that the Swiss airforce does not come to work until 8 am (week days).

"Switzerland cannot intervene because its airbases are closed at night and on the weekend," spokesman Laurent Savary told AFP.

It also appears that airbases close for 90 minutes for lunch.

Time for a change of career me thinks.

3 comments:

ageing man said...

The Swiss are not daft.... more like what happened is ....

They heard the commotion on the air traffic control systems of Europe, and thought shit we don't want any of this.... then left the phone off the hook, turned all the lights off and hid behind the settee until the excitement was over.

For a country claiming to be neutral during WW2 and not being occupied by the Germans ....ach erm... they are capable of any thing.

One good thing we can rely upon for the swiss, is that everything runs like clockwork.

More fool the French for not turning back at the Swiss border and leaving the miscreant aircraft to land in Geneva anyway...just to piss the swiss off....

Mark Wadsworth said...

Sounds like a cushy number, but I'd rather be in the Swiss Navy, you chug up and down the lakes a bit, stopping for coffee and cakes when the fancy takes you.

ageing man said...

and talking of navies... one of the worlds most successful merchant shipping companies is swiss.... MSC

the swiss are no fools.... they had no intention of landing the Ethiopian air craft .... if there is no money in it for them... they won't get involved...