Darwin Airline planes grounded

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Prior to the grounding, the regional carrier offered flights from Lugano to Geneva and Rome (Keystone)

Switzerland’s Darwin Airline, the Lugano-based regional carrier, was forced to halt all its flights on Tuesday after its licence was revoked by the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) over financial problems.

“The FOCA has announced the immediate withdrawal of the operating licence of the Darwin company (Adria Airways Switzerland) for economic and financial reasons. Darwin is no longer authorised to operate commercial flights,” the office wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

Darwin Airline confirmed external linkthe information in a short announcement on its website, stating that flights are ‘currently not operating’. But it added that “we are working on a solution to restart operation soon”.

Darwin Airline filed for insolvency on Monday following what it referred to as “unfavourable market impacts” that had affected its owner Adria Airways – which had bought the Swiss regional airline in June and launched a restructuring plan.

The company said the loss of contracts with Alitalia, which filed for bankruptcy in May, was partly to blame, and the unexpected insolvency of Air Berlin in August also had negative effects.

The Adria Airways Switzerland fleet is composed of six SAAB 2000 and four ATR 500 aircraft.

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