Austrian to launch Jeddah service

Dubai: Austrian Airlines will soon be starting additional flights from Dubai to Vienna as well as adding Riyadh and Jeddah to its destinations, a top company official said.

Rudolf Mertl, executive vice-president of the commercial passenger division, said that the airline wants to play a bigger role out of Dubai in the future.

Starting September 1, there will be a daily flight on the Dubai-Vienna route and an additional flight will be added in October.

"We will increase the number of seats by 60 per cent by adding new flights. We are completely convinced that we can sell this additional offer," Mertl said.

New flights to Riyadh and Jeddah will start in October this year.

"We will also start an additional destination next year but we have not decided yet," Mertl told Gulf News.

He said that they are considering Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain.

The airline has reconfigured four airbus A320 aircraft that will be flying the Middle East routes, to offer eight additional business class seats.

The new configuration will have 24 seats in business class and 102 in economy class.

The airline carried 10.5 million passengers in 2007, with an operating profit of just under 40 million euros and a turnover of 2.5 billion euros, according to Mertl.

He added that the airline's growth has slowed from 36 per cent in 2006 to 10 per cent in 2007 and nine per cent this year.