For the Ryanair subsidiary Lauda Europe there is again less work from Vienna. The lowcoster reduced the number of flights to 19 round trips per week. Other destinations will be suspended, with the resumption of more and more routes only in the summer flight schedule of 2021.

November 2020 turns out to be the technical low point in the short history in which the Ryanair Group has been present at Vienna Airport since June 2018. Even at the beginning of the Laudamotion activity from Vienna-Schwechat there were more flights per week in circulation. A few days ago, the competitor Wizzair also greatly reduced its activities and offers only two destinations with Pristina and Tenerife.

Many routes can be booked again with the two low-cost airlines from mid-December 2020, but the proportion of routes that are not to be reactivated until the summer flight schedule 2021 is increasing week by week. The situation is hardly better for competitor Austrian Airlines, because the offer was reduced to around ten percent of the same month last year. In flight operations, the smallest machine types currently dominate, DHC Dash 8-400 and Embraer 195, although the load factor is extremely weak due to a lack of demand.

AUA is also currently planning to ramp up its supply again from mid-December 2020, but the actual implementation for all airlines will likely depend on demand. This in turn depends on the further progress of the pandemic and cannot be foreseen. There may be a “small, increased demand” around Christmas from among those people who work or study in Austria, but their families live in other countries. Due to the currently valid entry and quarantine regulations, a big boost is not to be expected.

However, if you consider the enormous speed with which demand and thus also supply are falling, it is only a matter of a few days or weeks before the question arises again whether flight operations have to be stopped. At Wizzair you are probably very close given the fact that you only fly two rounds a week anyway. However, in principle, such a step cannot be ruled out for any European airline, including Ryanair or Lauda Europe and Austrian Airlines. With the last named carrier, the question arises with regard to the load factor why one flew with three passengers to Bangkok and back with two travelers. The implementation of such a rotation is deficient even with a full cargo hold. Unfortunately, this is not an “isolated case”, but is currently occurring frequently at AUA, for example recently on the Graz-Stuttgart route.

At Ryanair it is currently the case that those three Boeing 737-800s that are operated themselves have been moved to so-called short time storage. These jets are usually not used. However, this did not prevent the group from also bringing a Boeing 737-800, which is operated by the Polish company Buzz, to Vienna and using it there. The sister company Lauda Europe flies on some routes with A320 on behalf of Ryanair, but every week there are fewer flights. In the overview shown below, destinations that will be served for the last time this week are also shown as "set". It is only a matter of individual rounds anyway.