Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) will terminate a Do328-100 wet-lease agreement with Welcome Air (Innsbruck) next month. According to a press release, the use of the aircraft on flights from Vienna to Linz Blue Danube has proven economically unfeasible given the recent introduction of ticket taxes.
"Most recently Austrian Airlines incurred a loss of a significant one-digit million EUR amount per year on the Vienna-Linz route. Despite several attempts in past years to keep up service on this route, flights could not be operated profitably," it said in a statement.
As such, Austrian will maintain the route with a Dash 8-400 from April 1 onwards, but will reduce its frequency from the current five daily return flights, to a single rotation operating six days a week. Additional demand will be taken up by the airline's AIRail initiative with Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) which offers rail service between Linz Central Railway Station and Vienna Airport.
