Austrian studying wide body replacement

The CEO of Austrian Airlines has officially announced that the carrier has begun studying placing a large order for wide body aircraft to fully replace its aging fleet of 6 B767-300ERs + Boeing 777-200ERs from 2019 onwards. The carrier needs newer, more efficient aircraft to offer a more competitive product offering as well as operational cost savings in the long run.

Link: http://atwonline.com/airframes/ceo-austrian-airlines-must-begin-replacing-long-haul-fleet-2019-20

Comments:

By the end of Q1 2018, OS shall have 12 wide body aircraft in its fleet i.e. 6 B772ERs + 6 B763ERs. Their B777s have 48J + 264Y seating 312 pax in total whilst the B763s have 225 (26J + 199Y). It is too small of a fleet to have 2 different variant types and from a commercial standpoint, the B787 family is the ideal logical replacement.

Please note that even though new aircraft are expensive, this is a long term (20 year) investment that OS shall be doing with these aircraft hence buying 7-10 year old A330s and B777s isn't the right thing to do. To cater for future growth, OS needs to order 15 WB aircraft i.e. B787s as follows:

5 B788s + 7 B789s + 3 options

If demand for certain routes sees a big upswing in the mid 2020s, then the 3 options should be converted to the larger B787-10. If not then the options should be for the B789 variant. The B788 would seat 30J + 198Y comfortably so 228 seats in total whilst the B789 would seat 291 i.e. 30J + 261Y. Do note that EL AL went for the exact same above fleet plan strategy for the 2020-2030 period i.e. replacing their B767s/B777s and B744s with all 3 B787 variant types. 

One also does not see the need for 17 E95s in their fleet. These planes should be gotten rid off by 2021 along with their 7 A319s. In turn 25 Bombardier C300s should be ordered to replace both types as the long term savings incurred by operating the CS3 versus these 2 types with 25 aircraft is massive. The NB fleet part i.e. 23 A320s + 6 A321s should all be replaced with 30 A321NEOs.

Therefore, the future fleet in an ideal commercial scenario for the 2020-2030 period for OS should look like this:

i. 15 B787s for WB seating between 220-290 pax
ii. 30 A321NEO for high density intra-EU flying seating 200 pax
iii. 25 C300 for medium demand destinations seating 135 pax and operating within a 5.5 hour flying time radius
iv. 18 Q400s (they already operate 18 of the type) seating 76 pax and operating with 1-2 hours flying time radius 

Total fleet size 88 aircraft