Austrian Airlines to Open Newark Link in Summer 2014

Austrian Airlines is to significantly expand its transatlantic schedule during next year’s summer flight schedule and will introduce a new direct air service between its Vienna International Airport hub and Newark Liberty International Airport, a route that will complement its existing link from the Austrian capital and New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport.

The Star Alliance member will introduce the new five times weekly service from July 2, 2014 and will use a Boeing 767-300ER on the route. It will mean it will be offering flights to the two biggest airports in the New York metropolitan area, but like a growing number of airlines see the operational benefit of serving the two facilities, which are located in the State of New Jersey and Queens, Long Island and have slightly different passenger demographics.

Newark is the capital of the US State of New Jersey and Liberty International Airport is a primary business destination in the New York metropolitan area. The catchment area of the airport includes the industrial areas of New Jersey and Pennsylvania with their more than 20 million inhabitants. For Austrian any risk of launching the new route is partly mitigated by the fact that its alliance partner, United Airlines has a hub at the airport and through its transatlantic joint venture with Air Canada and the Lufthansa Group, will facilitate transit connections, including flights to Boston, New Orleans and Houston.

According to MIDT data, an estimated 177,000 bi-directional O&D passengers travelled on Austrian’s existing link between Vienna and New York last year, yet still around 14,000 passengers flew between the Austrian capital and Newark, despite the lack of direct services. Supplementing this point-to-point demand, Austrian also expects strong flows for the new flight in and out of its own Vienna hub from and to markets across Central and Eastern Europe, with destinations such as Prague, Bucharest, Sofia, Belgrade and Skopje all highlighted as key markets for transatlantic connections.

Alongside the Newark flight, Austrian will also enhance its offering to the US markets of Washington and Chicago during the summer 2014 schedule. The daily Washington route will be upguaged from a 767 to a 777 from July 1, 2014, increasing the available capacity on each flight by around 90 seats, depending upon which of its 777s it utilises. Meanwhile, the Chicago route will be boosted from five times weekly to a daily operation from May 2014.

“North America has potential. Our flights are very popular, which is why we are increasing their frequency. In the summer of 2014 we will expand our offering to North America by about 30 per cent”, said Karsten Benz, chief operating officer, Austrian Airlines. “We are growing on long-haul routes, strengthening our flight service to the USA and expect 130,000 more passengers in 2014. The hub of our partner Airline provides many additional flight connections from Vienna to the Newark flight hub.”

In the table below we look at all of the scheduled routes due to be operated between Europe and Newark Liberty International Airport in 2014. In total there will be more than 3.2 million seats offered in each direction in this market with United Airlines, who has a hub operation at the New York airport, dominating the capacity with its flights to 26 different European destinations accounting for a 55.5 per cent share of the available seats.