In the spring of this year, Austrian Airlines changed airports in the Milan region. They are currently heading for the inner-city Linate Airport. Previously, the remote Malpensa Airport was part of the program. This change is now reversed.
With the start of the winter flight schedule period, Austrian Airlines will move back to Malpensa according to the latest information on the Linate flights, and not entirely voluntarily. The reason for this is that the carrier only has take-off and landing rights at Milan's inner-city airport for the summer period. You don't have any for winter. Therefore, if nothing changes with regard to the slot allocation, there is no other option than to fly from another airport. You can choose between Bergamo and Malpensa, with AUA choosing the last-mentioned airport.
A spokeswoman for Austrian Airlines confirmed to Aviation Direct as follows: "Due to the current slot allocation, we can currently only offer flights to Linate until the end of the summer flight schedule 2021 (October 30)." However, the AUA hopes that they will still get take-off and landing rights for Linate, because they are striving to offer this goal permanently.
“For the winter flight schedule 2021, we already had Malpensa airport in our program before the change in June and we don't have any slots for Linate at the moment. However, we are endeavoring to find appropriate slots for the winter flight schedule 2021 and beyond, in order to be able to offer the popular Linate airport in the long term, ”explains an AUA media officer.