It was not until Monday that Wizzair boss Jozsef Varadi boasted that the carrier he managed was able to significantly expand its market share in Vienna and that of Austrian Airlines shrank noticeably. Their boss, Alexis von Hoensbroech, responded in a conversation with the courier and indicated that Wizzair would fly with empty planes.

Specifically, he said that Courier that anyone could fly with empty planes and that Austrian Airlines would fly with a sense of proportion. Furthermore, one should pay attention to a good occupancy rate and thus the economy of the flights. But the AUA manager throws stones out of the glass house, because the utilization of many Austrian Airlines flights is currently catastrophically poor. This also affects Germany-Austria traffic in particular. Aviation.Direct was able to subjectively determine on numerous flights that the frequently used DHC Dash 8-400s are not even half full. At the same time, Austrian Airlines is also offering comparatively cheap tickets, which is a clear indication of weak demand.

Since Germany is currently pursuing concrete plans to declare Vienna a high-risk corona region, this would mean that quarantine would have to be entered into in Germany or a negative PCR test would have to be included with the boarding pass. This could have a very negative effect, especially for Austrian Airlines and Eurowings, and put a further damper on demand. Short-term adjustments are therefore to be expected.

Apart from two copywriters who have always worked as real PR writers for Austrian Airlines, always worried that critical reports might not be invited to long-haul events in Business Class, the media and industry experts agree that the The current demand and utilization situation at AUA is critical. Competitors like Wizzair are hardly in a better position because Jozsef Varadi did not mention that the Hungarian low-cost airline only made drastic cuts from Vienna a few days ago. Carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanair are a little more open and publicly admitted that reductions would have to be made in autumn and winter due to low demand, which is also due to travel restrictions.

Group must cut further

For better or worse, Austrian Airlines will also have to reduce capacities. Very soon the question will also arise whether the phasing out of the DHC Dash 8-400 could possibly be postponed, because numerous routes currently do not offer the potential for the Embraer 195. This also regardless of the fact that many journalists try to make the Lufthansa subsidiary stand there particularly well.

CEO Carsten Spohr also provides the best evidence for this, because Bloomberg reports that he stated in front of his staff that the current booking situation is catastrophic. The figure for October 2020 is less than ten percent of the previous year's figure and that across the group. This means that, as mentioned, only a few advance bookings are available with Austrian Airlines. Spohr now wants to reduce capacity across the group and around 25 percent of the previous year's figure is up for discussion. A final decision has not yet been made.