Austrian has announced that they will begin service between Vienna and Los Angeles in 2017. It will most likely coincide with the Summer 2017 timetable which has yet to be finalized.
According to those ‘in the know’, Austrian will fly their 777 on the route 6 times a week. Further details about the flight will be made available once all approvals, etc. are in place.
Austrian’s current USA destinations include Washington, Chicago, New York, and Miami.
Last week Lufthansa revealed their plans to retire the last of their Boeing 737s that are still in service. If plans go to form, the last 737 will be removed from the fleet in October of this year, marking the end of a 48 year era. Over these 48 years, 155 737s have been in the LH fleet and 7 still serve today. Lufthansa first began using the 737 back on February 10, 1968.
This announcement is part of a larger strategy that has the Lufthansa Group retiring their aging aircraft. SWISS and Austrian are also in the midst of retiring some of their vintage birds including the Fokker family by Austrian and the Avro Regional Jet by SWISS.
As these birds are retired, they’ll be replaced by new and far more efficient Airbus narrow body aircraft helping improve the passenger experience on short and medium haul routes.
I had the chance to witness the retirement of one of these 737s when D-ABIB was brought to Lufthansa Technik Component Services in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For an avgeek, it’s a bit of a bittersweet moment to see an aircraft taken out of the fleet.
D-ABIB shortly after arriving in Tulsa for her retirement….
To meet the demand of fans traveling to and from this year’s Euro 2016 being hosted by France, Austrian has assigned the 777 to fly between Vienna and Paris. Of the 4 daily roundtrips between the cities, the 777 will be assigned specifically to flights OS411 and OS412. OS411 departs Vienna at 7:05a and arrives in Paris at 9:10a. OS412 departs Paris at 10:00 and arrives in Vienna at 12:00p.
Here are the specific dates for the 777 flights:
Daily from Thursday June 16 through Sunday June 19 (OS411/412).
Daily from Tuesday June 21 Through Thursday June 23 (OS 411/412).
This of course assuming that the French ATC workers don’t screw things up by going on Strike as they’ve threatened to do during the Tournament. However, I don’t see them being stupid enough to try that stunt if they wish to have the public’s support for their silly ‘plights’ 🙂
But again, the French ATC’ers have tried to make a career out of striking……
