Vienna Airport lost its second-largest customer a year ago when Air Berlin collapsed, but has since experienced a surge in traffic. Joint CEO and COO Julian Jäger tells Routesonline about the airport's new-found status as a battleground for low-cost carriers.
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Our top five stories on Routes Weekly: Vienna calling for LEVEL; A380 update; Vietnam's growth market; Bulletin board industry briefs; Wizz Air in focus and more.
International Airlines Group is seeking to gain a foothold on Austrian soil by using LEVEL, its low-cost weapon on transatlantic routes, to enter the crowded European short-haul leisure market.
Wizz Air, the Hungarian low-cost carrier focussed on the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) market, is continuing its advance west with the launch of its second base in Western Europe as it targets former Niki leisure passengers.
Star Alliance member, Austrian Airlines is to debut on the US west coast next year with the launch of a new service between Vienna and Los Angeles. The seasonal flight will operate on an up to six times weekly schedule from April 10, 2017 and will be flown using a Boeing 777.
The Dutch flag carrier is understood to have already held discussions with the Ministry of Roads and Urban Developments in Iran and is closely liaising with sister carrier Air France ahead of its own return to Tehran.
The new flight will be operated by an Airbus A319 and its introduction follows a recent revision to the previously heavily restrictive bilateral between Austria and Iran following the official state visit of Austria’s President Heinz Fischer to Iran in September this year. A link to Shiraz is also understood to be under consideration by Austrian Airlines.
The Supervisory Board of Austrian Airlines first approved the purchase of 17 Embraer aircraft in June 2015 with the first example being transferred across to Austrian Airlines in mid-August this year and redelivered to the carrier at the end of last month following modification work and repainting into the Austrian livery. The aircraft was originally delivered to Lufthansa CityLine in March 2011.
Lufthansa is to launch a new three times weekly link between its Munich hub and Tehran from April 14, 2016 using an Airbus A330-300, while also boosting capacity on its existing Frankfurt – Tehran service by switching from an A340-600 to a Boeing 747-400. Meanwhile, Austrian Airlines is to introduce a second daily rotation on its Vienna – Tehran route from March 11, 2016 with a new day flight complementing its existing night operation.
Numerous new flights from Vienna have already been published for the summer 2016 schedule including expanded offerings from based carrier, Austrian Airlines, as well as NIKI, SunExpress, Transavia and Vueling. The airport has also attracted the return of two seasonal operators in the form of Aegean Airlines and Europe Airpost, the latter soon to be rebranded as ASL Airlines.
The return to Shanghai highlights the continued importance of the Chinese market to the leading European carriers and the high value attached to its outbound market in particular. The airline previously served the Chinese city between April 2004 and January 2007 but stopped the flight as part of the redimensioning of the airline’s long-haul fleet and the decommissioning of its Airbus A330 and A340 long-haul fleets.
Austrian Airlines has been serving Dubai since 1996 but the arrival of Emirates Airline into the Vienna market has meant it has been under pressure for some time. Although the European carrier upped frequencies to a more than daily schedule in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it has recently cut back its activities to match capacity to seasonal point-to-point demand.
The airline plans to introduce new services to London Luton, Berlin Schönefeld, Manchester, Amsterdam and Bristol – the latter of which will be a brand new destination for Vienna Airport.
Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport was actually easyJet's first destination outside of the UK back in 1996 but it has taken almost 20 years for the carrier to decide to establish a base operation having served the airport from its other European bases.
The Star Alliance member, part of the Lufthansa Group, currently operates four flights per day between Vienna International Airport and London Heathrow and will introduce the new Manchester link from September 10, 2015. The route will be served with Fokker 70 and Fokker 100 equipment.
British low-cost airline, Jet2 has announced a total of twelve new routes from Edinburgh Airport next summer, bringing the total of routes operated by the airline to 26.
Niki said at the time the flights were announced that it believed there would be sufficient demand for the short flights, which despite a 25 minute block time were estimated to be just ten minutes in length. The majority of this demand would have been to feed its wider network from Vienna International Airport, according to the carrier.
