Austrian Airlines with first expansion plan for 2021

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).

Austrian Airlines with first expansion plan for 2021

DHC Dash 8-400 from Austrian Airlines at Vienna International Airport (Photo: Robert Spohr).
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Austrian Airlines is now returning to the minimum program after the Christmas and New Year period. According to a spokesman, only around 2021 to 15 percent of the previous year's capacity will be offered in January and February 20. The domestic route between Klagenfurt and Vienna will also be paused again.

This has a significant impact on the Carinthian Airport, because it not only loses the hub connection, but is again without any scheduled flights for a few weeks. Eurowings does not plan to reactivate the Cologne / Bonn route until March 1, 2021. The sister company Austrian Airlines intends to fly to Vienna again from February 27, 2021. The Rotterdam route planned by Transavia has been canceled and no longer appears in the flight plans. The operating times of Klagenfurt Airport are already severely limited, so it is not to be expected that this situation will change by the end of February 2021.

The minimum program of Austrian Airlines consists of 40 destinations across the route network, which are offered from Vienna. According to a spokesman, the “increased minimum program” that Austrian Airlines carried out over the Christmas and New Years season consisted of 60 destinations. The decentralized Germany flights from Graz (Düsseldorf, Stuttgart) and Linz (Düsseldorf) will be paused until at least the end of February 2021. From the Styrian airport, reactivation failed in late autumn 2020, because both routes had to be discontinued after a short time due to a lack of demand. At least once there was even a flight from Graz to Stuttgart with only two passengers on board the DHC Dash 8-400. From Linz, the Düsseldorf route has been in deep sleep since March 2020. 

“The resumption of flights from Graz to Stuttgart and Düsseldorf as well as those from Linz to Düsseldorf has been postponed due to the situation around COVID-19 and is now planned for the beginning of March. I can rule out that we will be flying for Lufthansa in the Salzburg-Frankfurt wet lease. Until further notice, we will fly Innsbruck-Frankfurt ourselves as usual ”, a spokesman for Austrian Airlines told Aviation Direct.

30 percent offer from March - Podgorica will be reactivated in mid-January

Austrian Airlines plans to gradually ramp up flight operations again at the end of February 2021. “Our overall offer will increase to 30 percent in March compared to the previous year”, said a media officer for the carrier. This also includes the reactivation of the Klagenfurt-Vienna connection, which is then to be operated again “up to daily”. Attempts are being made to reactivate the decentralized Germany routes in the summer flight schedule of 2021, although it has not yet been decided which aircraft should be used to fly to Germany from Graz and Linz, reported Aviation Direct.

However, there will be reactivation as early as mid-January 2021, because the Vienna-Podgorica route will be operated again from January 17, 2021. This should actually be paused for the entire winter flight schedule period, but: “After Montenegro Airlines ceased flight operations and thus no longer flies Vienna-Podgorica, we increased our offer on this route at short notice. Two additional connections per week will be carried out until mid-March - originally, a flight break would have been planned here as well. We are planning three connections per week on the route from mid-March 2021. According to the current status, we will also be flying them in summer - Podgorica has already been a year-round route in the past, ”explains the spokesman.

Austrian Holidays program only from Vienna

Austrian Airlines' summer flight schedule 2021 is currently still like a major construction site. This means that you are in good company, because very few providers have already set the program for the warm season. This is particularly related to the still unclear situation regarding entry and quarantine regulations. These and generally the further progress of the corona pandemic are decisive factors that can have a massive negative impact on demand. In this respect, it is not yet clear whether everything that is currently displayed on the Austrian Airlines homepage and in GDS systems will actually be flown that way. If necessary, destinations and / or frequencies could be deleted or added. At the moment, airline tickets are only bought at extremely short notice, if at all.

The holiday flight program is no longer referred to as “My Holiday”, but as “Austrian Holidays” and has already been published. This applies subject to changes that may be necessary due to the Corona pande and the associated entry and quarantine regulations. Another new feature is that, according to the current planning status, “Austrian Holidays” is only offered from Vienna. The offers from the federal state airports are no longer available or have been taken over by competitors.

The following hot water targets from Vienna-Schwechat are currently planned for the summer of 2021 under the sub-brand “Austrian Holidays”:

  • Chania (CHQ) May 15 - October 30, 2021
  • Heraklion (HER) May 15 - October 30, 2021
  • Kalamata (KLX) June 13 - September 15, 2021
  • Karpathos (AOK) May 18 - September 23, 2021
  • Kefalonia (EFL) June 04th - September 17th, 2021
  • Corfu (CFU) May 15 - September 25, 2021
  • Kos (KGS) May 21 - September 29, 2021
  • Mykonos (JMK) June 14th - September 20th, 2021
  • Preveza (PVK) June 12 - September 18, 2021
  • Rhodes (RHO) May 15 - October 24, 2021
  • Santorini (JTR) May 15 - October 09, 2021
  • Skiathos (JSI) May 29th - September 25th 2021
  • Zakynthos (ZTH) May 21st - October 01st, 2021
  • Bari (BRI) September 05th (first flight in the triangle with Brindisi) - October 24th 2021
  • Brindisi (BDS) June 12th - September 05th, 2021 (last flight in the triangle with Bari)
  • Cagliari (CAG) May 16 - September 26, 2021
  • Catania (CTA) May 15 - October 30, 2021
  • Lamezia Terme (SUF) May 29th - September 25th 2021
  • Naples (NAP) June 05th - October 30th, 2021
  • Olbia (OLB) May 16 - October 03, 2021
  • Gran Canaria (LPA) March 27th - October 30th 2021
  • Ibiza (IBZ) June 12th - September 18th 2021
  • Palma de Mallorca (PMI) May 29th - September 29th 2021
  • Tenerife South (TFS) March 27th - October 30th 2021
  • Keflavik (KEF) June 27th - September 07th, 2021
  • Funchal (FNC) March 28 - October 28, 2021
  • Dalaman (DLM) May 31 - September 27, 2021

Competitors Wizzair, Ryanair, Corendon, Aegean Airlines and other providers are also planning to fly on many of the routes mentioned. This means that if there is a large-scale withdrawal, it is already foreseeable that the summer of 2021 will bring extremely tough competition on many holiday routes. The extent to which potential passengers would like to go on vacation and whether they will tend towards direct bookings or package tours cannot currently be estimated at all. It is unclear to what extent “free travel”, at least within the Schengen area, will be possible again as it was in the “pre-Corona era”, but the biggest unknown for the industry is the customer. It is not possible to estimate whether consumers will behave cautiously or whether they will book and travel heavily again according to the motto “finally out”.

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