Austrian’s operating results remain in the black

Austrian Airlines starts medium-haul fleet renewal before the end of this year despite the crises in the Middle East and Russia

Austrian Airlines is launching a program this year, earlier than planned, to renew its medium-haul fleet. This was decided upon by the Management Board of the Lufthansa Group. This year the Austrian Airlines fleet of Fokker aircraft will be gradually replaced by medium-haul jets produced by Embraer, contingent upon the formal approval of the Supervisory Board of Austrian Airlines at its meeting scheduled for March 19, 2015.

The Embraer jets, type 195 are currently being deployed by Lufthansa CityLine. The renewal program is to start in the autumn of 2015 and is expected to be concluded at the end of 2017. Plans call for the first Embraer 195 jet with the typical red-white-red tailfin of Austrian Airlines to be in operation before the end of 2015.

At present, Austrian Airlines operates 21 Fokker 70 and Fokker 100 aircraft. For the time being, a total of 17 Embraer jets will be transferred from Lufthansa CityLine to the Austrian Airlines fleet. The aircraft will come from Lufthansa CityLine, which in return will receive Bombardier CRJ900 NextGen jets from Eurowings.

In terms of finance the resolute restructuring program of the Austrian Airlines Group is clearly reflected in its business results for the year 2014: According to the just published annual results Austrian Airlines generated an operating profit of EUR 10 million (2013: EUR 25 million). Taking into account the non-recurring effects related to provisions allocated for special severance payments as part of the new collective wage agreement for the flight crew, earnings would be significantly higher than in the previous year. The earnings situation of the airline in 2014 was also negatively impacted by the crises in the Middle East, Russia and the Ukraine.

As a consequence of stringent cost management measures, operating expenditures fell by close to one percent or EUR 19 million, from EUR 2,173 million to EUR 2,154 million. At the same time, total operating revenues were down by 1.5 per cent to EUR 2,16 billion from the prior-year level of EUR 2,2 billion. In 2014, Austrian Airlines operated a total of 126,953 flights using 75 aircraft, or about 350 flights per day.

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