• Austrian reduced seating capacity in January
• Positive outlook to next January due to addition of Mauritius as a flight destination
Austrian Airlines has reduced its offering measured in available seat kilometers (ASK) for January 2015 by 8.8 percent compared to the prior-year period. Thus, the domestic carrier responds to the weaker winter months in Central Europe. Accordingly, as expected, fewer passengers flew with Austrian Airlines in the month of January. On balance, Austria’s national carrier transported a total of 609,000 passengers, comprising a decline of 15.3 percent in a monthly comparison. Accordingly, revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) fell by nine percent from the prior-year level. Capacity utilization (passenger load factor) remained relatively stable at minus 0.2 percentage points.
In the future, Austrian Airlines will place even more emphasis on attractive winter destinations.
“We want to score with Mauritius in the upcoming winter and thus carry more passengers once again”, says Andreas Otto, Chief Commercial Officer of Austrian Airlines, commenting on the planned addition of Mauritius to the airline’s route network as of October 29, 2015.
Europe
In January 2015, Austrian Airlines carried about 493,900 passengers in Europe, corresponding to a decrease of 17.6 percent from the previous year. This drop is partly due to the sluggish seasonal demand, and also a result of the fewer passengers flying from Russia because of the crisis in the region and thereby also reduce the transfer figures. On balance, capacity utilization (passenger load factor) was down 2.3 percentage points to 65.2 percent.
Intercontinental
Austrian Airlines carried approximately 115,100 passengers on its intercontinental flights in January 2015, comprising a decline of 4 percent compared to the previous year. The passenger load factor was up 0.7 percentage points from January 2014.
