The "prank concert" at Austrian Airlines continued on Monday. Once again, an enormous number of passengers are stranded in Vienna and at other airports served by the Austrian Lufthansa subsidiary. Due to a lack of staff, AUA had to cancel numerous flights at the weekend.

In addition to the cancellations, there have also been some AUA courses over the past few days that have been significantly delayed. Up to eleven hours later, two courses were on their way. In view of the fact that AUA boss Annette Mann claimed just a few days ago, most recently on Saturday in the Ö1 morning journal, that everything is under control and there is no shortage of staff, the credibility of the company is definitely in question. So it is not surprising that there are more and more passengers who claim that Austrian Airlines does not comply very well with the issue of passenger rights in some places. Specifically, it is about the legal right to substitute transportation, because several stranded passengers have reported independently that rebookings on available flights from other airlines that do not belong to the Lufthansa Group or Star Alliance have been refused. At some airports, the ground service providers commissioned by Austrian Airlines are said to have only handed out slips of paper with the telephone number of the hotline. This is said to have been heavily overloaded and in many cases not to have been a short-term solution.

For the sake of fairness, one must also give Austrian Airlines credit for the fact that there are cases in which passengers have refused both the offered alternative transport and hotels. For example, travelers argued that they had booked a “direct flight” (wrong anyway, since “direct flights” can have stopovers, unlike “non-stop flights”) and did not want to change flights “anywhere”. Or the hotel would be too far away for them. In these cases, passengers can book at their own expense with the consent of Austrian Airlines and then submit the invoice. This is a gesture of goodwill on the part of the carrier, because if reasonable accommodation or reasonable alternative transport is refused without a good reason, the airline is practically off the hook.

However, Austrian Airlines must provide replacement transportation at the earliest possible time, including with another airline. Incidentally, the AUA received a defeat in the Supreme Court some time ago, because it used to be of the opinion that rebooking was only possible within the Star Alliance. The passenger was refused reimbursement of the ticket costs for a replacement flight with another airline. The Supreme Court ruled illegal.

Unfortunately, word has not yet gotten to the decision-makers at Austrian Airlines that you have to rebook on every available airline. This also includes low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and Wizz Air. According to customer service staff at AUA, over the past few days, stranded passengers have repeatedly sought out competitor connections and are supposed to be rebooked on them. But you can't. This means that the passengers have to wait until any free seat with airlines with which Austrian Airlines has a contract becomes available or book the replacement ticket themselves at their own expense and then request it back from AUA.

Regardless of passenger rights, any flight cancellation is a nuisance to passengers. Especially when the company boss explains on the radio on the very day that the great chaos broke out how well prepared they are for the summer of 2022 and that there is no shortage of staff. Sick leave is unpredictable, but still not that surprising. In view of the fact that Austrian Airlines laid off employees with so-called golden handshakes this year and these are missing right now, the understanding of many passengers is likely to be very limited.

In any case, Austrian Airlines promises improvement and claims that the problems in flight operations will be under control from Tuesday and the chaos should be over. After all: Since Saturday, the number of deletions has decreased day by day. The really big rush is imminent at the end of this week, because that's when the summer holidays begin in Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, among other places. In any case, the “dress rehearsal” was unsuccessful. Incidentally, an opposition party demanded in an OTS broadcast that the government should immediately demand the return of the state aid granted.