Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) will not renew its wide-body fleet in the near future as the carrier's financial situation does not allow for such an investment, the CEO of parent Lufthansa Group Carsten Spohr has told Air Transport World.
"10% of our [Lufthansa Group] aircraft are based in Austria, but only 4% of the group’s profit is generated there. The refinancing for a new intercontinental fleet for Austrian is unaffordable right now," Spohr has said, adding that the Vienna-based unit is yet to realise the full potential of the existing fleet.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Austrian Airlines currently operates twelve wide-body aircraft, including six B767-300(ER)s and six B777-200(ER)s. The B767s are 22.3 years old on average, while the B777s are not much younger at an average of 17.4 years of age.
Regarding wide-body equipment, the group currently has twenty B777-9s on order directly from Boeing, while its main unit Lufthansa had seventeen unfilled A350-900 orders as of April 30, 2018. Earlier this month, Lufthansa Group has also placed orders for two additional B777-300(ER)s for its Swiss (LX, Zurich) subsidiary.
