Austrian Airlines' management board has formally recommended that shareholders accept Lufthansa's takeover, as Austrian confirmed abysmal financial results for last year.
The flag-carrier posted an operating loss of €312 million ($404 million) on lower revenues of €2.53 billion.
Austrian attributes the poor figures partly to one-off effects, such as impairment losses on aircraft totalling €238 million, and otherwise would have turned in an operating loss of €35 million.
Joint chief Peter Malanik says: "While our prospects gave us good reason to be optimistic in the early months of the year, the situation worsened rapidly due to the extremely high price of fuel, which was quickly followed by a dramatic fall in the volume of bookings, due to the world financial and economic crisis."
The carrier says it suffered a 31.5% increase in fuel expenditure, but insists that its strategy of expanding into central and eastern European destinations, and the Middle East, has been beneficial.
Austrian points out that its passenger numbers stayed "largely stable". The carrier transported 1.1% fewer passengers last year and its load factor slipped fractionally to 74.4%.
But Malanik, and joint chief Andreas Bierwirth, state that - even before the current economic downturn - the company realised that operational countermeasures "would not be sufficient" to turn the airline around, and that Austrian would need a strategic partner.
Austrian's board has today formally recommended that shareholders accept the offer put forward by Lufthansa to acquire the carrier.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
