(''Österreichische Luftverkehrs AG'') is the international
Airline of
Austria , with its headquarters in
Vienna . Its main base is
Vienna International Airport (VIE).
The airline was founded on
September 30 ,
1957 . On
March 18 1958 the airline made its maiden flight when a
Vickers Viscount 779 took off from
Vienna for
London ,
England . Austrian Airlines was formed through the merger of Air Austria and Austrian Airways. The airline's transatlantic services began on
1 April 1969 with a Vienna to
Brussels and
New York service initially in co-operation with
Sabena .
Austrian Airlines is owned by
ÖIAG (39.7%), floating stock (43.5%), Austrian institutional investors (10.3%) and
Air France (1.5%). It also wholly owns subsidiary airlines,
Austrian Arrows and
Lauda Air and has a 62% share in
Slovak Airlines . On October 1st, 2004, the Flight Operations Departments of Austrian and Lauda Air were merged into a single unit, leaving Lauda Air as a brand name only for charter flights.
It has 5,163 employees at January 2005.
On
September 26 ,
1960 a
Vickers Viscount 837 crashed while attempting to land at
Moscow . Thirty-one of the thirty-seven people on board perished.
On
January 5 ,
2004 , an Austrian Airlines
Fokker 70 was forced to make an emergency landing on a field outside
Munich International Airport . There were three minor injuries.
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The airline is in discussion with
United Airlines for a code-share operation on
Vienna -
Chicago . Austrian's longest routes are from Vienna to
Melbourne and
Sydney ,
Australia , via
Singapore and
Kuala Lumpur , respectively.
Between
July 2006 and
May 2007, Austrian will be replacing the “Austrian Business Class” service on their
Boeing long-haul fleet on a step-by-step basis. The long-haul
Airbus fleet will get the new seats after the Boeing business class seats have been refitted.
