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Austrian Airlines (Österreichische Luftverkehrs AG) is the international airline of Austria, with its headquarters in Vienna. Its main base is Vienna International Airport (VIE). It dominates the market for flights to Central- and Eastern Europe.

History


The airline was founded on September 30, 1957, making its maiden flight on March 18 1958 when a Vickers Viscount 779 took off from Vienna for London, England. Austrian Airlines was formed through the merger of Air Austria and Austrian Airways. 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 Airlines is owned by ÖIAG (39.7%), floating stock (43.5%), Austrian institutional investors (10.3%) and Air France (1.5%). It also wholly owns subsidiary airlines, Austrian Arrows and Lauda Air and has a 62% share in Slovak Airlines. On October 1st, 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. It had 5,163 employees at January 2005.

Destinations


In 2006 Austrian dominates the market for flights from/to Central- and Eastern Europe.

See full article: Austrian Airlines destinations.

The airline is in discussion with United Airlines for a code-share operation on Vienna-Chicago. Austrian's longest routes are from Vienna to Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, via Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, respectively.

New Routes


It will increase the frequency of flights Vienna-Moscow by adding a third flight Mondays through Thursdays departing Vienna in the morning and operated with an Airbus 319. It will resume nonstop service Vienna-Beirut on June 2006. It will operate 3 flights a week departing Vienna on Wed/Fri/Sunday and Beirut on Mon/Thu/Saturday using an Airbus 320.

New long-haul business class


Between July 2006 and May 2007, Austrian will be replacing the “Austrian Business Class” service on their Boeing long-haul fleet on a step-by-step basis. The long-haul Airbus fleet will get the new seats after the Boeing business class seats have been refitted.

Guided tour through the new business class

Fleet


As of April 2006 the Austrian Airlines fleet (including Lauda Air) was:

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Austrian Airlines".

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