Austrian Airlines may be stopping Australia services

A report in the Sydney Morning Herald over the weekend, says that Australia could soon have only two European airlines service flying here, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, due to Austrian Airlines reportedly considering the possible suspension of services to Sydney and Melbourne.

It is reported that the recent surge in aviation fuel prices has led to the part state-owned carrier now reviewing all its long-haul routes with the longest being Sydney part of the review.

Austrian Airlines spokeswoman Livia Dandrea-Böhm told the Herald,”It is one of our routes that is under review”, but she said that any talk of the carrier exiting Australia at this stage was “really just speculation”.

Since the early 1990s mainland European carriers which have stopped flying to Australia include, Olympic Airways, Lufthansa, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Air France, Alitalia, France’s Air Outre Mer and Jat Yugoslav Airlines with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will be the last remaining European carriers if Austrian pulls out.

But with BA recently withdrawing from Melbourne ands its relationship with Qantas, the long-term future of the airline’s services to Sydney are also under a cloud.

The European exodus is not just fuel cost related, as even Qantas has been forced to scale back services, as a result of the intense competition created by sixteen Asian and Middle Eastern airlines servicing the Australia to Europe run.

Virgin Atlantic said it had no plans to increase its daily flights from London to Sydney via Hong Kong, despite the Richard Branson-controlled carrier, which launched flights to Australia in late 2004, planning to double its flights to Hong Kong next year and it is know what Virgin Alantic had a difficult start to its services to Australia, its plans to stay in Australia were bolstered last October when it posted its first profit on the route, well ahead of schedule.

Virgin Atlantic spokeswoman Sinead Kelly told the Herald, “It’s definitely one of the most competitive routes in the world and has some of the best airlines in the world on that route,”

Competition aside, Qantas also has blamed its inability to fly daily services to many European cities for the scaling back of its services.

Austrian’s review of its Sydney route comes only three months after its former Chief Executive Vagn Soerensen told the Herald the airline “actually found it a very good route”.

According to the most recent statistics published by the Bureau of Transport Economics, Austrian which has three aircraft deployed on its Australian routes only filled 55% of its inbound seats to Australia in April, compared to the 83% inbound loads Qantas achieved on its Frankfurt route the same month.

Report by The Mole