It seems that the harsh reality of running a network has hit Austrian Airlines, with the airline announcing some big chops and changes.
Austrian Airlines Airbus A320 taxing at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
So what’s being sliced?
- Hong Kong
- Havana
- Colombo
- Linz (Replaced by ÖBB AIRail service)
- Isfahan (Iran)
- Shiraz (Iran)
- Miami (goes seasonal)
Passengers affected will be re-booked onto other carriers – check your bookings.
Instead, Austrian Airlines are chasing the money, with more North American and Chinese Routes. This breaks down into:
- Chicago going daily
- Newark going six-times a week (+2 flights extra a week)
- New York JFK going five-times weekly (+3 flights extra a week)
- Toronto (one extra flight a week)
- Beijing (one extra flight a week)
- Shanghai (one extra flight a week)
- Cape Town.
Explaining the reasons behind the change, Austrian Airlines CCO Andreas Otto states:
“With the entire fleet and now 12 long-haul aircraft, we want to offer a denser route network and thus an improved offer for our passengers,”
“For this reason, we will take advantage of available capacities, especially to serve North America more optimally. This way, we aim to be more attractive to business travelers and transfer passengers in Eastern Europe and also to simply gain more customers,”
There’s some big retreats there – least of all the Hong Kong service which was launched with a big fanfare two years ago. The Iranian services are sadly – a sign of the times – with airlines retreating from that space with speed.
As For Linz – it proves an effective rail service can take away air trade quickly if managed right. And with 16 services a day between the Airport and Linz, it’s easy to see why the air connection has been removed.
Whilst changes like this are unwelcome in some respects, it does offer a chance for increased connectivity to different destinations. The question as usual is – are they the right network changes?
I’m sure we’ll find out in six months time…
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