Austrian Airlines will cancel its five-times weekly Vienna-Dubai service next month.
The Lufthansa Group carrier blamed "over-capacity" on the route for its decision to axe the flights.
Four Gulf airlines — Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad and Flydubai — now serve Vienna (see news, October 2014) and the extra capacity proved an insurmountable challenge for Austrian Airlines.
Austrian said in a statement: "The over-capacity, built up in recent years, resulted in fierce price competition as up to 800 seats per day were on offer. This ultimately made the Vienna-Dubai route unsustainable for Austrian Airlines."
Austrian has been flying to Dubai since 1996 and will operate final outbound service OS839 on September 13 and last inbound service OS840 the following day.
The airline will instead launch a five-times weekly Miami service on October 16; a weekly service to Colombo, Sri Lanka, from October 27; and a twice-weekly service to Mauritius from October 29.
Graham Smith
