Austrian Airlines is temporarily suspending all regular flight operations due to increasing travel restrictions and dropped demand amid the current Coronavirus crisis.
From Wednesday night, the Austrian flag-carrier will cancel all flights until at least March 28th. The last flight is expected to arrive in Vienna from Chicago on Thursday morning.
Customers will, if possible, be rebooked on other airlines or receive a full refund of their tickets.
The airline says it is keeping one long-haul and one medium-haul aircraft in operation, should there be a need for evacuation, relief or emergency flights.
Just ten days ago, Austrian Airlines’ parent Lufthansa Group announced to cut capacity by ‘up to’ 50%. However, since that announcement, there have been several new travel restrictions, including for entry into the United States.
On Monday, following the developments at Austrian, Lufthansa itself said that the entire group is operating only 10% of typical long-haul capacity and 20% of short-haul capacity, starting on Tuesday.
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Jakob Wert is an aviation journalist from Germany. He built up the website IFN.news and is the Editor-In-Chief of International Flight Network.
