SkyEurope targets “weak” Austrian Airlines
Slovakian budget carrier SkyEurope is planning to take on Austrian Airlines at Vienna Airport, its chief commercial officer told Air Transport World Online.
Karim Makhlouf said SkyEurope, which opened a base at Vienna in March, would target Austrian’s ‘Focus East’ strategy, introduced by the legacy carrier in 2004 to boost traffic to Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Pacific.
He told ATWOnline that ‘in times of consolidation it is normal to go where you expect a gap in the near future’, adding that he considered Austrian to be ‘the weakest hub carrier in Europe. They have a cost problem. That is why we will attack them.’
SkyEurope currently operates two Boeing 737s from Vienna but will increase this to six during winter 07/08 and to as many as 15 in the long-term. He added that although it was concentrating on Vienna, SkyEurope did not intend to close its Bratislava base, just 35 miles away. ‘SkyEurope is shifting its network toward main airports as part of my focus to restructure the airline towards profitability. Of course there is a huge cost benefit with being based in Bratislava.’
He also confirmed that the airline had applied for traffic rights from Bratislava to Russia and Ukraine and hoped to begin new services from W07/08. The rights became available following February’s demise of Slovak Airlines, which was 62% owned by Austrian Airlines.
Makhlouf joined SkyEurope in September 2006. A German national, he previously spent ten years with Lufthansa before joining the founding team of Germanwings, and has also worked for TUI AG, where he was in charge of network planning and revenue management for Hapag-Lloyd Express.
SkyEurope, Central Europe’s first low-cost carrier, began operating a single domestic route in the Slovak Republic in February 2002, using a 30-seat Embraer 120ER. It operates from six bases in Bratislava, Budapest, Krakow, Prague, Vienna and Warsaw to 38 cities in Europe, using 16 B737s.
Report by Chitra Mogul
Chitra Mogul
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