Flight OS 117’s 16:15 departure from Graz to Vienna today closes a chapter that began on 1 May 1963, when a Douglas DC-3 first linked the Styrian capital to the national hub. Austrian Airlines (AUA) had already reduced the route to roughly 1.5 rotations per day after phasing out its Dash 8 turboprops; profitability evaporated once larger 120-seat Embraer 190s took over. According to CEO Annette Mann, the carrier’s three remaining domestic spokes – Vienna-Graz, Vienna-Klagenfurt and Vienna-Innsbruck – jointly lose about €12 million per year. Graz airport chief Wolfgang Grimus admits the writing had been on the wall as travellers shifted to faster rail and as AUA trimmed frequencies in favour of feeding its Star Alliance partners’ hubs in Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich. To soften the blow, Lufthansa Group will boost seat capacity on those three routes by up to 40 % this winter, giving Graz passengers one-stop access to over 200 global destinations. For mobility budgets the change is mixed. Vienna-based corporates will now rely almost entirely on ÖBB Railjet services (2 h 35 min city-centre to city-centre) when sending staff to Graz. While door-to-door times stay competitive, late-night travel flexibility is reduced and last-minute rail fares may spike during trade-fair weeks. Employers should revise internal travel policies, switching default bookings from air to rail and updating carbon-reporting baselines. The cancellation also underscores a wider European trend: short-haul routes under 300 km are increasingly judged unsustainable unless they serve dispersed islands or onward long-haul banks. Austrian Airlines is already planning to drop Vienna–Zagreb, Marseille and Cologne in January 2027, further shrinking its point-to-point map. Regional investment agencies in Styria and Carinthia are lobbying for public-service-obligation tenders, but the ministry of transport says rail improvements offer a greener, taxpayer-friendly alternative.
Source: aeroTELEGRAPH
