Continental boss sees war stabilising air fuel price Reuters, 03.06.03, 11:45 AM ET GENEVA, March 6 (Reuters) - War in Iraq would not be a major blow to struggling international airlines and could bring some stability back to the industry and to fuel prices, Continental Airlines (nyse: CAL - news - people) chief Gordon Bethune said on Thursday. "War can't make the situation (for airlines) worse," he told a meeting of the American International Club of Geneva and the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce. Trans-Atlantic bookings with Houston-based Continental, the fifth-largest U.S. carrier, were down 20 percent this year. "People are already staying at home," he said. "In fact, now we know it (a war) is going to happen, the anxiety will go out of it all, and the oil price will stabilise. "That's what we're hoping for, and businesses around the world as well," declared Bethune, Continental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Soaring jet fuel prices ahead of the now widely expected war in Iraq has been seen as threatening to cut further into revenues of world airlines, already reeling from a total loss of $30 billion over the past two years. Bethune was speaking after U.S. officials made clear that Washington would go ahead with a military campaign against Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, unless he promptly gives up weapons of mass destruction the United States says he has. U.S. ambassador to Switzerland Mercer Reynolds earlier told the gathering that, regardless of a coming vote on the Iraq crisis in the U.N. Security Council, President George W. Bush "has decided either he (Saddam) disarms or we disarm him". Reynolds, a Bush appointee who is returning to private business in the United States next month, was echoing remarks in Washington on Wednesday by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Bethune was in Geneva for the launch on Friday of the first regular daily flights by Continental between the city and Newark Liberty International Airport near New York. Despite the climate in the industry, Geneva -- with its international organisations, United Nations agencies and European headquarters of many global businesses -- was potentially a major growth centre for the airline. "This city is currently not very well served from the United States," he added. Continental, which last month said it expected to post a significant loss this year because of slack revenue and fuel costs, already has a daily flight in each direction between Newark and Zurich, the Swiss financial capital at the other end of the country. (Reporting by Robert Evans, editing by Tom Hals; Geneva Newsroom, +41 22 733 38 31; Reuter Messaging: robert.j.evans.reuters.com@reuters.net)) Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service Roger EWROPS