Reportage: AUA says “Bye, Dash!”

For decades, DHC Dash 7 and 8 turboprop aircraft have been the backbone of Tyrolean Airways' regional fleet, which was merged into Austrian Airlines a few years ago. While the Dash 7 and the smaller versions of the Dash 8 had not been used for many years, the Dash 8-400 was the backbone of Austrian Airlines, especially in the winter flight schedule 2020/2021.

In the end, Muster was the backbone of the fleet

The reason for this was simple: Because of the corona pandemic, demand was extremely low and the turboprop model was even used on “race tracks” such as Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich. It was all the more astonishing for many industry insiders that the AUA stuck to the extermination plan that was announced before the pandemic.

“Austrian Airlines is well prepared for the phasing out of the Dash. With the comfortable, efficient Embraer and Airbus aircraft, we will continue to offer our passengers a good feeder offer with Vienna as our hub, ”says Austrian Airlines CCO Michael Trestl

Up to 18 Dash 8-400s were once in service, but the strength of the fleet had shrunk to two units by March 2021. The turboprops were supposed to be phased out at the end of March, but the AUA decided to keep two DHC Dash 8-400 in use until the end of May. All 18 aircraft have already been sold and on May 31, 2021 an era will end in the Lufthansa Group: Austrian Airlines was the last company-owned operator of turboprop aircraft. That is history now.

“Dash has had an impressive career in our company, it is and will remain part of our history. We will not forget that. I would like to thank everyone who has looked after the Dash aircraft over the past few decades, the cabin and cockpit crews, the technical team and many more, ”says Austrian Airlines COO Francesco Sciortino.

The last rotation led to Innsbruck

With the OE-LGI, the OS 605/6 is the last commercial Dash circuit in the company's history. After that, the props will be serviced and handed over to the new owners in the course of the year. From an Austrian point of view, the event was quite historic and attended by many interested parties. For example, Flughafenfreunde Wien has secured numerous seats on board the OE-LGI.

“At peak times, the Dash 8-Q400 completed up to 44.000 individual flights per year,” says Austrian Airlines Dash fleet manager Thomas Bleimuth. “With this type of aircraft, you could also fly to particularly challenging locations. Tyrolean Airways used to fly the four-engine Dash 7, for example, to Courchevel in the French Alps, an airfield at over 2.000 meters above sea level. "

On April 9, 1980 the history of Dash started not only in Austria but all of Europe. At that time, Tyrolean Airways was the first European airline to take over the first Dash 8 forerunner, a De Havilland Canada DHC-7. With its excellent short-landing characteristics, the 50-seat regional aircraft was ideal for use at difficult airports such as Innsbruck or Courchevel. From 1985, Tyrolean Airways used the twin-engine successor Dash 8-100 on flights to Graz, Frankfurt and Zurich. Up until the complete takeover of the Tyrolean airline by Austrian Airlines in 1998, a total of 44 different Dash 8 series -100, -300 and -400 flew for Tyrolean.

Muster completed 520.000 safe landings

At Austrian Airlines, 18 Dash 8-Q400s were recently in use on short-haul routes, for example on flights from Vienna to Milan, Warsaw or Zagreb. After almost 20 years of operation with Austria's home airline, this aircraft type alone can boast some impressive figures:

• Over 20 million passengers have flown the Dash 20-Q8 in the past 400 years.
• The Dash 237-Q8 covered 400 million kilometers without an accident - that's 310 flights to the moon and back.
• The Dash 54-Q8 machines spent a total of 400 years in the air.
• In their career, the aircraft have made more than 520.000 safe landings.
• During their pre-flight checks, the pilots of the Dash 8-Q400 walked over 52.000 kilometers - that's 20 circumnavigations of Austria.

OE-LGI was in the air for Tyrolean and AUA for 16 years

The OE-LGI, which completed the last Dash flight for Austrian Airlines under flight number OS 906, is 16,2 years old. The “DH4” was delivered to Tyrolean Airways in early 2005. At this point in time, the former AUA subsidiary sold under the marketing name “Austrian Arrows”. 

A few years later, “Arrows” was abolished and, due to the transfer of operations, Tyrolean even operated almost all AUA flights for a while. With the “transfer of operations back”, the Tyrolean airline, which grew up with Dash aircraft, was merged into Austrian Airlines.

The OE-LGI has therefore always flown for the Austrian Airlines Group in its previous life. First under the Tyrolean AOC and later under that of the mainline. The machine bears the baptismal name “Eisenstadt”. It is the capital of the Austrian state of Burgenland.