• More than 980,200 passengers in October
Austrian Airlines carried more than 980,200 passengers in October 2015. This corresponds to a year-on-year drop of 1.5 percent from October 2014. The reason for that is the airline’s proactive reduction of available seat kilometers (ASK) on both its European routes (- 1.1 percent) and on its intercontinental flights (- 3.3 percent) due to the weaker seasonal demand. In comparison, capacity utilization (passenger load factor) on European flights in October 2015 remained stable at a level of 75.2 percent, whereas the passenger load factor on its intercontinental flight traffic rose 0.6 percentage points to 81.1 percent. On balance, the passenger load factor for Austrian Airlines in the month of October 2015 amounted to 78.5 percent, comprising an increase of 0.3 percentage points from the previous year.
In the period January to October 2015, Austrian Airlines carried over 9.3 million passengers. The year-on-year decrease of 3.3 percent is in line with the business plan. It reflects the targeted management of capacities: European flight traffic was reduced due to the weak business in Eastern Europe, particularly relating to Russia and Ukraine. In contrast, slight growth was generated in intercontinental flight traffic. The flight offering as measured in ASK was up by 0.1 percent, whereas revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) fell by 1.0 percent. For this reason, cumulative capacity utilization declined as expected by 0.9 percentage points to 78.8 percent.
