The Swiss government warned yesterday it would hold up a one billion Swiss franc (€680.3 million) credit essential to Swissair's survival until it was sure the group's ailing ground service subsidiaries were able to survive.

A spokesman for the Swiss finance ministry, Mr Daniel Eckmann, said the government must have "clear signals" by the end of the week that aircraft maintenance subsidiary SR Technics, ground services company Swissport and computer reservations company Atraxis will receive the liquidity needed to keep them running.

The Swiss media reported that the head of the government's Swissair task force, Mr Peter Siegenthaler, had warned that if the firms did not receive liquidity, Swissair would be grounded again and it would spell the end of the rescue plan for the Swiss airline industry. "One of the conditions of the credit is that essential ground operations must be funded by those other than the federal government, that is, private companies, banks, airports or regional authorities," Mr Eckmann said. He said the government hoped for positive signs this evening during a meeting of a steering group led by the Zurich cantonal (regional) authorities, Zurich airport, banks and local firms. But a senior regional official in canton Zurich said his canton would not put up more money. Zurich economics director Mr Rudi Jeker said it was not up to regional authorities to prop up the subsidiaries with taxpayers' money.