Austrian Airlines plans to operate its last remaining Fokker 100 until the end of the year.
The Lufthansa Group carrier tells FlightGlobal that its intention "from today's point of view" is to operate its last scheduled passenger service with the Rolls-Royce Tay-powered regional jet for a return flight from Vienna to Kosovo's capital Pristina on 31 December.
Austrian
Austrian and its former regional subsidiary Tyrolean Airways operated up to a total 24 Fokker 100 and 70 jets in the past. The size of the fleet has been gradually declining since 2012, and 11 remained in service at the end of last year.
Austrian says it now has just a single Fokker 100 (OE-LVE) in service, which is predominantly used for flights to Moldovan capital Chisinau and Geneva in Switzerland. Flight Fleets Analyzer shows the aircraft was built in 1994.
In 2004, an Austrian Fokker 70 made an emergency landing in a field short of Munich airport's runway after ice had built up in the aircraft's engines, which led to a loss of thrust. The twinjet came to a rest on its belly, but none of the occupants were badly injured.
Despite substantial damage, the aircraft was later repaired and returned to service with South African operator Golden Wings Aviation.
Austrian in August completed a programme to replace its Fokker 70/100s with 17 Embraer 195 jets that were previously part of Lufthansa CityLine's fleet.
Dutch carrier KLM phased out its last Fokker in October.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
