Austrian or Tyrolean

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  • Anonymous
    Guest

    dutchyankee
    Participant

    I have a silly question I hope someone can answer. I have been flying a lot with Star Alliance lately as their coverage of Russia is superior to that of one world. I recently flew on Austrian a few times via VIE to LED on their F100 and on the aircraft and inside there are signs `operated by Tyrolean,` and I saw the same on their Dash8-Q400 so thought Tyrolean was their regional arm. Then I flew from Istanbul to Vienna on an A320 and it too said `operated by Tyrolean,` and finally I saw the same painted on one of their 767`s parked near the lounge. So who is Tyrolean, and if all the flights are operated by Tyrolean, why not just call it Tyrolean instead of Austrian? Thanks for any insight.


    MartinJ
    Participant

    Virtually all Austrian flights are now executed by Tyrolean. Operations were transferred to what used to be Austrian’s regional carrier (similar to KLM’s cityhopper or Lufthansa Regional) as Tyrolean has lower salaries than Austrian. Essentially, this was a management trick to save money. Austrian is the brand but all flights (except the those with the one aricraft that is still Austrian-registered) are executed by Tyorlean, Austrian’s 100% subsidiary.


    IanFromHKG
    Participant

    US airlines do this as well for regional flights – many US Airways or American Airlines domestic flights are in fact operated by different companies but carry the “mothership” brand or those of their regional brands (eg American Eagle or American Connection

    Even BA do it in reverse – the aircraft are owned by different companies but are franchised to BA. So for example on my last BA flight (GVA to LHR) the captain was at pains not to refer to it as a BA flight but as a flight “operated by British Airways”

    It’s all smoke and mirrors really…


    dutchyankee
    Participant

    Thanks Martin and Ian. I fully understand your points and thought as much, but I guess my main reason for asking was that in this case it seems all Austrian aircraft (except apparently for one) are actually operated by Tyrolean, which seems odd and is certainly different than a regional arm operating within the parents` branding; here it is the parent operating almost completely by their regional arm (albeit in Austrian colors.).


    Senator
    Participant

    My understanding is that in addition to having all staff employed through the subsidiary (a LLC) they also are using Tyrolean’s certificate as operator.

    This is not per se, the same as US carriers do with regional flights. Certain regional carries like Continental Express and American Eagle were owned by Continental and AMR respectively while Mesa and Pinnacle were separate entities and not owned by US Airways and United. This set up is more like a wet lease arrangement.

    I may be off here, but the reason why the systems show Austrian – Operated by Tyrolean Airways has more to do with the operational certificate than which subsidiary the staff is employed by. Otherwise, soon we will see: SAS – Cabin Staff operated by Adecco 🙂

    I believe it was a desperate move by the Austrian management team along with their German owners as staff refused to meet new conditions. I don’t think we have heard the last of this saga yet as I believe it is (still) making it through the Austrian court system.


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    MartinJ- Am sure many if not most Lufthansa Regional flights have been hived off to German Wings. The main exception being the feeder flights to and from FRA and MUC.

    Interesting piece today in the German aviation website aer.de (German language) that Austrian is phasing out its costly (to operate) F70s in favour of slower (but cheaper to operate) Dash-8 turbo-props. The Dash-8s will operate routes requiring planes with a capacity of under 100 seats.

    http://www.aero.de/news-19428/Austrian-vor-Flottenentscheidung–.html


    PeterCoultas
    Participant

    interesting thread for me as my recent (leeds-insbruck ret) flights were with tyrolean but, for some reason, no ticket number was associated with the flights and hence! no FF miles!

    In the past regularly used tyrolean for flights from MUC-berne and found them excellent.


    JohnHarper
    Participant

    I’ve been on a few Austrian planes recently and all have ‘operated by Tyrolean’ both on the fuselage and on the panel inside the door.

    Does anyone know which one doesn’t? I believe it’s a 772.


    TominScotland
    Participant

    JohnHarper – I think you will find the answer to your question in the thread above……..


    JohnHarper
    Participant

    TominScotland – 15/04/2014 12:16 GMT

    Thank you for another helpful response. You do seem to be full of them at the moment.

    Had I found the answer, I would not have posed the question.


    TominScotland
    Participant

    John, not at all. I just thought this was rather clear:

    “Virtually all Austrian flights are now executed by Tyrolean. Operations were transferred to what used to be Austrian’s regional carrier (similar to KLM’s cityhopper or Lufthansa Regional) as Tyrolean has lower salaries than Austrian. Essentially, this was a management trick to save money. Austrian is the brand but all flights (except the those with the one aricraft that is still Austrian-registered) are executed by Tyorlean, Austrian’s 100% subsidiary.”


    Senator
    Participant

    @JohnHarper, the entire fleet has been transferred to the subsidiary along with both crews in the cabin and on the flight deck.


    JohnHarper
    Participant

    However I was told by an Austrian crew member as recently as last week that one aircraft remains on the Austrian operators certificate. There is no difference on how it is utilised but it does not have the Tyrolean markings on it.

    I think the Austrian crew member was speaking the truth so I still wonder which aircraft it is.

    Is that clear?


    Senator
    Participant

    @JohnHarper, was it one aircraft or one aircraft type? You could for example test by simulating some bookings.

    There could of course be outliers left in the Austrian Group, but to my understanding these changes were done for strategic reasons.

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