Austrian national airline and Lufthansa Group member Austrian Airlines will be launching twice-weekly direct flights to the North African city of Marrakesh, starting in October 2022.

The return of the "Pearl of the South" city in Morocco on the airline's flight plan will allow for convenient access to exotic destinations within the city. The pleasant temperatures in October make it even more of an ideal weekend getaway in autumn. Austrian Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Michael Trestl said,

"Marrakesh perfectly rounds down our portfolio of holiday destinations on short and medium - haul flights and offers our guests a well-earned timeout during winter months. We are continuously expanding our network and thus strengthen Austrian Airlines‘ function as a red-white-red flag- carrier at Vienna Airport."

The Vienna-Marrakesh route

The airline first operated the Vienna-Marrakesh route almost two decades ago in 2006, and it eventually became one of the airline's hot-selling routes before it was temporarily paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, Austrian Airlines would fly to the Moroccan city once a week on Saturdays, usually including it within the winter schedule and operating the Airbus A319 for the 4 hours and 15 minutes flight, covering a distance of around 3,200 km. With this triumphant return this October, Austrian Airlines will be flying on both Wednesdays and Saturdays, operating using the Airbus A320 instead.

Austrian Airlines has always set its business strategy to focus harder on tourist destinations, and reinstating the Vienna-Marrekesh route is further emphasis of that.

Remaining focused on Europe

The strategic location of Vienna International Airport makes it ideal for Austrian Airlines to connect between the East and the West. The airline has scheduled to offer more than 110 destinations from Vienna in the summer in an effort to reach approximately 120% of its pre-Covid capacity.

One of such destinations is Croatia, whereby the Lufthansa Group member is also renewing seasonal routes from Vienna to Dubrovnik and Split from the end of March, as well as to Zadar in early April. The beginning of the summer flight schedule also marks the beginning of flights to Dubrovnik and Split, which will happen from March 27th.

The direct flights to Dubrovnik will be operated on a five-times-weekly timetable except for Tuesdays and Thursdays and will be a morning flight leaving Vienna at 11:00. This route will be operated on a rotation of two aircraft, between the Airbus A320 and the Embraer 195 aircraft.

On the other hand, the direct flights to Split and eventually to Zadar will be on a six-times-weekly schedule except for Tuesdays up till the second half of April, whereby there will be an increase in the number of flights on a daily basis. Similar to the Dubrovnik route, the flights to Spilt and Zadar will be operated on a rotation between the Airbus A321 and the Embraer 195 aircraft.

Considering that the airline has retired all of its Dash Q400 aircraft in June last year, the rotation between aircraft acts as compensation, allowing the airline to switch capacity on and off, before the number of flights eventually increases.