Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) will be acquired by Star Alliance partner Lufthansa (LH/Frankfurt Intl) after the German carrier and the Austrian government reached agreement on a deal that includes the Austrian government taking on approximately 50% of the debt of AUA. The transaction that has not yet been approved by the European Commission has caused a lot of criticism from bidders Air France-KLM (AF/Paris CDG) and S7 Airlines (S7/Novosibirsk) and other carriers such as Niki (HG/Vienna) and Ryanair (FR/Dublin). Lufthansa will first take a 41.56% stake in the Austrian national carrier and will then make a takeover offer for the remaining shares. Austrian will increase its presence in the Middle East: Vienna-Aleppo: 3x weekly A320-200/A321-200 service starting on March 29 Vienna-Amman Queen Alia: 4x weekly A320-200 service starting on May 7 (replacing terminated codeshare with Royal Jordanian (RJ/Amman Queen Alia)) It has however given up its Vienna-Luxembourg and Vienna-Riga routes at the end of October in favour of codeshare agreements with Luxair (LG/Luxembourg) and Air Baltic (BT/Riga). It will also terminate its Vienna-Mumbai services on March 1.