Austrian Airlines ends makeshift freighter operations

Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) has announced that after 15 months of makeshift freighter operations, it will have returned its two B777-200(ER)s to their normal passenger layout by the end of July 2021.

OE-LPA (msn 28698) operated its last flight as a makeshift freighter on June 4, 2021, and is currently being reconfigured for passenger services. OE-LPC (msn 29313) continues to fly cargo-only missions as of June 25, 2021 but will return to passenger service at some point in July. It will be deployed predominantly on services to North America as it reopens for travel from and to Europe.

The Austrian carrier also deployed some of its B767-300(ER)s on cargo-only flights, albeit without removing their passenger seats and only using the bellyhold capacity. The Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int’l) subsidiary said that since the beginning of the pandemic, it has operated 159 cargo-only flights to Austria, Germany, and Italy, predominantly from Asia.

Austrian does not operate any dedicated freighters and will thus now return to only selling bellyhold cargo capacity. Its widebody fleet comprises four B767-300(ER)s (one due for retirement) and six B777-200(ER)s. In a recent interview with Aviation Daily, Chief Operating Officer Francesco Sciortino said the airline would be interested in consolidating its wide-body fleet around a single type to improve efficiency.

Although parent Lufthansa Group shared renderings of its B787-9s in Austrian Airlines’ livery when it placed an order for twenty units in March 2019, neither the parent holding nor its Austrian subsidiary have ever confirmed that the group would actually earmark any of them for Austrian Airlines.