The US West Coast could be on the cards next year if Austrian Airlines decides to proceed with non-stop flights from Vienna.

According to a report on the German language aviation website aerotelegraph.com, the carrier’s CEO Kay Kratky believes the route holds potential because “although there is massive overcapacity on the North Atlantic, there are currently no direct or non-stop flights linking Vienna with the US West Coast.”

Should the Los Angeles route go ahead, Austrian Airlines, a member of the Lufthansa Group, would likely reduce services to one or more of its current US destinations.

Right now it flies non-stop from Vienna to Chicago, Miami, New York JFK and Washington.

“Our goal is clear,” Kratky is quoted as saying, “we will not continue loss-making routes. And we need to improve the balance between business and leisure traffic.”

With a monopoly of the Vienna to US West Coast market, Austrian Airlines would expect to attract a greater number of high fare-paying business people to use the new route.

Currently there are few if any non-stop air links between points in Eastern Europe and the US West Coast and that would give Austrian Airlines a market advantage.

The carrier would expect to operate the route six times a week using, perhaps, one of its B777-200s.

The nearest airport (to Vienna) boasting non-stop Los Angeles flights would be Munich from where Lufthansa operates a once daily service.

Austrian.com