• Passenger volume up 9.8 percent to almost 6.4 million
• Extra boost in June: Boeing 777 OE-LPF leads to 10.7% passenger increase on long-haul flights
Austrian Airlines carried close to 6.4 million passengers in the period January to June 2018. This comprises a year-on-year increase of 9.8 percent or about 600,000 passengers. This rise in passenger volume can be primarily attributed to the integration of an additional B777 aircraft in the airline fleet alongside growth in continental flight traffic in Europe. The flight offering measured in available seat kilometres (ASK) was up 4.9 percent to almost 12.9 billion. Revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) climbed 8.1 percent from the prior-year level to surpass the level of 9.8 billion. Capacity utilization of the flights (passenger load factor) equalled 75.8 percent on average, an increase of 2.3 percentage points compared to the first half of 2017.
“The new member of our fleet strongly boosted passenger volume in June”, says Andreas Otto, Member of the Management Board and CCO of Austrian Airlines. “Besides the positive development of our continental traffic, we also continued to score points in the intercontinental segment, for example with the restart of our flights to Tokyo.”
The upward trend in the total number of passengers also applies to the month of June 2018. About 1.4 million passengers flew with Austria’s red-white-red flag carrier in June, comprising a 10.1 percent increase from the prior-year month. The flight offering measured in available seat kilometres climbed 7.7 percent to 2.7 billion. Revenue passenger kilometres were up 11.9% to almost 2.2 billion. Capacity utilization (passenger load factor) equalled an average of 81.5 percent, representing an increase of 3.1 percentage points compared to June 2017. The number of flights was up six percent from the previous year to 13,979 flights in June 2018.
