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Austrian Airlines
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Austrian Airlines AG is the flag carrier airline of Austria, headquartered in Vienna. Together with regional subsidiary Tyrolean Airways (Austrian Arrows) and charter arm Lauda Air, it operates scheduled services to over 130 destinations. Its main base is Vienna International Airport, with a hub at Innsbruck Airport. It is a member of the Star Alliance and the Austrian Airlines Group.
HistoryThe airline was founded on 30 September 1957, making its maiden flight on 31 March 1958 when a Vickers Viscount 779 took off from Vienna for London, England via Zurich. Austrian Airlines was formed through the merger of Air Austria and Austrian Airways. It launched domestic services on 1 May 1963. The airline's transatlantic services began on 1 April 1969 with a Vienna to Brussels and New York service in co-operation with Sabena.
Austrian became a member of the Star Alliance in 2000. That year, Austrian acquired Lauda Air, an airline whose operations included long haul flights, and acquired Rheintalflug on 15 February 2001. Its name was shortened to Austrian in September 2003 when it rebranded its three constituent carriers. On 1 October 2004 the Flight Operations Departments of Austrian and Lauda Air were merged into a single unit, leaving Lauda Air as a brand name only for charter flights.
Austrian Airlines is owned by ÖIAG (39.8%), floating stock (48.0%), Austrian institutional investors (10.2%) and Austrian Airlines (2%). It also wholly owns subsidiary airlines, Austrian Arrows and Lauda Air, and has a 22.5% share in Ukraine International Airlines. It has 8,468 employees
Corporate Design
The color scheme of Austrian Airlines was always held in red-white-red. The airplanes from the 1950s to 80s were silver at the bottom of the body, the upper part was white with the Austrian Airlines arrow and the writing "Austrian Airlines" (till 1972, 1995-2003) or "Austrian" (1972-1995, from 2003 onwards).
The typical Austrian Airlines arrow ("Austrian Chevron") had three versions. 1960 still looking like the body plan of a paper airplane, it got its now known shape in 1972. With the rebranding taking place in 1995, the "Chevron" was placed on the red-white-red tail-fin. But with the new Corporate Design since 2003, the "Chevron" form had a "renaissance": the old shape was used again, just this time in a more modern style and a shadow placed underneath.
Many special color schemes and surface varnishes have been used throughout the decades. Since joining the Star Alliance, a few airplanes already have been coated with Star Alliance motives on them. For the Mozartyear 2006, an Airbus A320 was coated with a Mozart-Design, also an Airbus A340 was coated with an homage to the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra and a Boeing 737-600 was coated in a glacier-look for a Tyrol advertisement. Right now three designs have been put on airplanes regarding the EURO 2008, and an Airbus A320 in a retro-livery on the occasion of the 50 year celebration of the company.
Destinations
A major focus in the Austrian route network is Eastern Europe and the Middle East, much of which is operated by subsidiary Tyrolean.
In 2006, in a move to save about US$51 million per year, Austrian decided to eliminate its A330 and A340 fleet, which consisted of four Airbus A330-200(OE-LAO,OE-LAN,OE-LAM,OE-LAP), two
Airbus A340-200(OE-LAH and OE-LAG) and 2 Airbus A340-300(OE-LAL and OE-LAK). Some of these aircraft were sold to TAP Portugal, Swiss and the French Air Force. As a result in having less long haul capacity, Austrian suspended some of its long-haul flights to East Asia and Australia. Flights to Shanghai ended in January 2007 while flights to Phuket, Mauritius and Colombo and Malé ended in April 2007 and those to Kathmandu ended in May 2007. .
March 2007 also saw the termination of the airline's longest flights, the Vienna-Singapore-Melbourne and Vienna-Kuala Lumpur-Sydney routes, ending operations on the Kangaroo Route. This was Melbourne's last European-based airline connecting the city with direct flights to Europe.
Austrian was one of the few airlines to fly into post-war Iraq when it began flights to Erbil when it started flights in December, 2006. However, the flights were discontinued the following year. Flights to Erbil have been resumed April 2nd, 2008.
New routes
Starting in October 2008, Austrian Airlines will commence service to Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia with four and three flights a week respectively.
New long-haul business classIn 2007 Austrian completed the refurbishment of the business class cabins on its long-haul fleet.
Special security
The armed monitoring of Austrian flights by Cobra (police anti-terrorist-squad of Austrian Federal Ministry of interior) began in 1981. During each accompanied flight at least two undercover armed air marshals are onboard.
Incidents and accidents
- On January 5, 2004, an Austrian Airlines Fokker 70 was forced to make an emergency landing on a field outside Munich International Airport. There were three minor injuries.
- On September 26, 1960 an Austrian Airlines Vickers Viscount (OE-LAF) crashed near Moscow; 31 of 37 passengers were killed.
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