Austrian Airlines (AUA), which is part of the Lufthansa group, just like Brussels Airlines, will save heavily, Austrian media report. More than 500 jobs would disappear.

It would be the largest restructuring operation ever for Austrian Airlines, which, like other traditional airlines in Europe, faces competition from low-cost airlines.

De airline expanded considerably last year, creating 1.200 new jobs. But about half of that would now be scrapped again, local media report. The airline has a total of around 7.000 employees.

In the first half of the year, Austrian suffered a loss of EUR 53 million. In July, the full financial year was still based on a slightly positive result. But Lufthansa has imposed a profit target of 100 million euros on Austrian to offset the investments in the fleet.

Phase-out of Bombardier

Austrian Airlines had already started phasing out the eighteen Bombardier Q400s to replace them with ten Airbus A320s. That means work on the shop for Fokker, which is working on a few aircraft at Woensdrecht.

The Austrian airline announced in January that it would retire its fleet of Q400s by 2021 and replace them with larger A320s.

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Austrian Airlines
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