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Jos malo o svajcarskom radnom vremenu 
Citat:“Please attack only during office hours”
Swiss air force fighters are operational only from 8 a.m. to 12 noon in the morning, and from 1:30 pm to 5 pm in the afternoon, Savary said, adding however that radar coverage is provided round the clock. Swiss authorities were informed of the hijacking at 4.30 am, and the aircraft finally landed in Geneva at 6.02, after having flown in circles for some time.
Switzerland’s air police agreements allow allied aircraft to intercept unidentified aircraft over Swiss territory, and to force them to land, but not to shoot them down because “this is an issue of national sovereignty,” Savary said.
So, “If the Ethiopian Airlines hijacker had lost his mind and decided to crash the airplane in Geneva, the foreign jets would not have been authorized to shoot it down in flight….it would have turned into a real catastrophe,” la Tribune de Génève noted.
Swiss media had a field day reporting the incident, as did readers commenting on their websites. Many readers expressed incredulity or made fun of the air force’s clock-punching approach to air defense. Others, however, questioned why the air force needed new fighters at all, since it lacks enough pilots to fly the ones it already has. Still others wondered whether it wouldn’t make more sense to hire more pilots and buy more fuel instead of spending billions of francs to buy the 22 new Gripen fighters to which Switzerland has now committed.
All in all, not very good publicity for the Swiss air force, which needs all the goodwill it can muster in the lead-up to the May 18 referendum in which voters will be asked to approve the financing arrangements for the Gripen acquisition, and the related “Gripen Fund” that will be set up by the ministry of defense.
Citat:The Italian air force scrambled two Eurofighters, and the French air force two Mirage 2000Cs, to intercept a hijacked Ethiopian airliner in southern Italy and escort it to Geneva, where it landed.
Citat:“We can’t afford to keep aircraft on alert 24 hours a day. That is why we have agreements with neighboring countries, who ensure air police missions outside of office hours, when our military airfields are closed,” Swiss air force spokesman Laurent Savary told the Tribune de Génève newspaper.
 http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/rele.....p-out.html
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