Austrian Airlines History

Austrian Airlines was a relative latecomeer into the field of European Aviation, although it did have two forebares, in the form of Air Austria and Austrian Airways. It started in 1957 with – as most airlines did then – its maiden flight to London, from Vienna via Zurich.

Growth was very slow, and after a half hearted attempt at domestic services in 1963 (to Saltzberg) it reached out with transatlantic services in 1969 via Brussels to New York.

Vienna the old 2002Senator lounge

The airline received a massive boost in 2000 by taking over Lauda Airways. Lauda Air was founded by Motor Racing ace Nikki Lauda and began in 1979 with charter flights on two small Fokkers to the Med. It rapidly expanded, and profited greatly from very long haul charter flights. However Lauda never really recovered from a spectacular crash in Thailand in 1991 when all onboard a 767 were killed. Nikki Lauda quit, and Austrian already had a small stake by 1997, and took it over in 2002. Since then the brand has been slowly diluted, and has now been effectively scrapped. Lauda Air now has a fleet of all of one plane, which operated Charter Flights under the title of "The Austrian way to Holidays". This is a long way from the Lauda Air of 2000-2006 which operated ultra-long haul flight to both Sydney and Melbourne.

Vienna the old 2002 Senator lounge food bar

Austrian became a member of the Star Alliance in 2000, and rebranded as just plain “Austrian” in 2003. By this point Lufthansa had already gained a large stake in the airline, and there then began a slowly creeping “lufthansation” of the airline. But 2009 Lufthansa purchased Austrian Airlines in full.