AUA: A320 from Graz and Linz “quite unlikely”

DHC Dash 8-400 from Austrian Airlines at Vienna International Airport (Photo: Robert Spohr).
DHC Dash 8-400 from Austrian Airlines at Vienna International Airport (Photo: Robert Spohr).

AUA: A320 from Graz and Linz “quite unlikely”

DHC Dash 8-400 from Austrian Airlines at Vienna International Airport (Photo: Robert Spohr).
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Austrian Airlines is currently working hard on the summer flight schedule for 2021. There will be changes on the decentralized Germany routes from Linz and Graz. However, according to a company spokesman, the use of aircraft of the type Airbus A320 is “unlikely”.

The routes Graz-Düsseldorf, Graz-Stuttgart and Linz-Düsseldorf with Airbus A320 are currently stored in the Lufthansa subsidiary's online reservation system. These were also “turned around”, so the machines no longer start the circuit from the federal state airports, but from Düsseldorf or Stuttgart. According to the AUA, it is still completely open whether it will stay that way. The use of aircraft from Vienna via Germany is extremely unlikely due to the operating times of the two German airports.

An AUA spokesman said: “The program is kind of a placeholder. We are currently still working on our summer flight schedule. We should know more about this by the end of January 2021. We will most likely not use the A320 on these routes. ”

Some time ago, Austrian Airlines announced that the decentralized routes to Germany would be handed over to its sister company Eurowings. At that time it was considered likely that the DHC Dash 8-400 of the airline Walter will be used in wet lease. This type of machine was stationed in Düsseldorf as well as in Stuttgart for the Kranich low-cost offshoot. The emphasis is on was, because Eurowings terminated its cooperation with LGW and the Zeitfracht subsidiary had to file for bankruptcy and is currently being wound up. Austrian Airlines has never ruled out the possibility of wet lease aircraft being rented on the decentralized routes, but also within Austria.

The transfer of commercial responsibility on the decentralized Germany routes has already been handed over to Lufthansa in Innsbruck and Salzburg, for example. In Graz and Linz, the plan to hand them over to Eurowings has not yet been implemented. The spokesman for Austrian Airlines did not answer whether the time had come in the 2021 summer flight schedule. He answered the question of whether the three routes will not be “outsourced” to the sister company.

The further development on the three routes is also exciting from another aspect: Austrian Airlines stressed repeatedly, that the schedule for the phasing out of the DHC Dash 8-400 machine type will be adhered to. As a result, the turbo graft planes - unless changes are made - will no longer be available in the summer flight schedule of 2021. Currently, however, the Dash is the backbone of the AUA fleet due to the extremely weak demand. 

From Linz and Graz, the number of passengers on the routes to Düsseldorf and Stuttgart is rather manageable, as the routes are mainly used by business travelers. Due to the high price level, these are known as “high yield routes” and are therefore particularly valuable. Using another aircraft operated by Austrian Airlines or Eurowings would inevitably result in a significant increase in capacity. Whether this can be sold profitably is questionable, because “turning around” would make the routes less attractive for business travelers and, on top of that, experts expect that fewer personal business appointments will take place even after the corona pandemic. A lot of things should be done in the future by phone, email or video conferencing and should only attend particularly important appointments in person. If this forecast occurs, almost all airlines will have significantly fewer business travelers on board.

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