Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) will wet-lease two ATR72-600s from Sweden's BRA - Braathens Regional Airlines (Stockholm Bromma) to continue operating thinner regional routes where demand does not justify deploying the carrier's in-house E195s.
"On some regional routes, the demand has not fully returned after the pandemic. To continue connecting these routes to our Vienna hub in the future, we need adjusted capacity structures. I am pleased to have found a dedicated partner in Braathens Regional Airlines in this challenging segment", Chief Commercial Officer Michael Trestl said.
The two ATR - Avions de Transport Régional turboprops will begin operating for the Austrian Lufthansa Group unit on a year-long extendable contract on March 30, 2024, on routes to:
- Belgrade Nikola Tesla (daily),
- Bologna (weekly),
- Graz (daily),
- Klagenfurt (2x daily, including one new rotation),
- Kosice (2x daily),
- Leipzig/Halle (2x daily),
- Warsaw Chopin (weekly), and
- Zagreb Franjo Tuđman (3x weekly).
Except for the Kosice, Klagenfurt, and Leipzig routes, the other services will see a mix of ATR72-600 and E195 operations.
The ATR72-600s can seat up to 72 passengers, compared to Austrian's E195 carrying up to 120 passengers. The Vienna-based carrier operated in-house regional turboprops, namely DHC-8-Q400s, but retired all of them by May 2021. Its current fleet comprises seventeen E195s, twenty-nine A320-200s, five A320-200Ns, three A321-100s, three A321-200s, three B767-300ERs, and six B777-200ERs.
In turn, BRA operates thirteen ATR72-600s placed on the AOC of BRA - Braathens Regional Airways and four A319-100s on the AOC of Braathens International Airways, the ch-aviation fleets module shows.
