End of an era: the last AUA dash flight is imminent

Today, Monday, the era of turboprop aircraft ends at Austrian Airlines. The DHC Dash 905-906 will be used for the last time on the Vienna-Innsbruck-Vienna route under flight numbers OS 8 or OS 400. After that, the AUA will not operate any commercial Dash flights.

The turboprop aircraft manufactured by de Havilland Canada were extremely successful for the Austrian aviation company and especially for Tyrolean Airways, which was merged into it. The former regional airline brought the Dash 7 model to Austria in 1980. The four-engine aircraft quickly proved to be a success and Tyrolean made full use of the capabilities of the turbo-prop: To this day, it is the only airline that has ever operated scheduled flights to Courchevel (France). To this day, the operation is remembered by many Tyrolean pilots as a flying masterpiece.

Since the carrier, which at that time was still independent of the AUA, was extremely satisfied with the Dash 7, they also decided on the successor model Dash 8-100. Over the years, Tyrolean Airways had pretty much every variant of the Dash 8 in its fleet, but at the beginning of the 2000s a tough cut came: the AUA had decided that all 50-seaters had to leave the fleet and that also applied to them at the time in use CRJ-200 and Dash 8-300.

The DHC Dash 8-400 was still in operation for many years and then formally joined the AUA fleet with the merger of Tyrolean and Austrian Airlines. Most recently, 18 units were in use, but the phasing out was initiated the previous year. Actually, the last "props" should have been out of the fleet on March 31, 2021, but it was decided at short notice to operate two units by May 31, 2021. The reason should be very simple: Because of the corona pandemic, demand was very low and the Dash fleet turned out to be the perfect workhorse.

The months and years to come will show whether Austrian Airlines will make the right decision or not by phasing out the "DH4". In-house, too, there are repeated doubts that the right time has been found. It is up to management to prove that a pure jet fleet can be operated economically even with low utilization.

In any case, this Monday the DHC Dash 8-400 will be ceremoniously bid farewell on its last commercial flight. Aviation Direct will report on this event, which is quite significant from an Austrian aviation point of view, and will also share photos from videos on the social media channels. Finally, a small slideshow of AUA dash photos taken over the past few months when this pattern has been tirelessly in use.