A winegrower in Burgenland should actually have delivered around 2020 bottles of Welschriesling to Austrian Airlines between January and August 120.000. It was an award-winning fine wine that the carrier no longer wanted after only around one sixth of the contractually agreed quantity. The winemaker is now sitting on countless bottles with the AUA label.

Winemaker Günther Hautzinger told Austrian Broadcasting that he had made a loss with Austrian Airlines. The reason for the non-acceptance by the Lufthansa subsidiary is that, due to the corona pandemic, the offer has been greatly reduced under the guise of “contact reduction”, only coffee, tea and water are served - and only after a certain minimum flight duration. From spring 2021, Austrian Airlines will ask to pay for this itself, because the airline is introducing again Paid catering system on. Most recently, in this regard, at the beginning of the 2000s - with extremely negative customer feedback - the lowcosters.

But the Burgenland winemaker has another problem: the closure of the gastronomy and hotel industry means that the circle of substitute buyers is severely limited. Basically only private customers remain, but they do not need the volume that Austrian Airlines originally ordered or hosts serve to their guests. According to ORF, the vintner is hoping for a quick opening and also that AUA will buy products from him again in 2021 and that the contract will be kept this time.