Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Austrian Airlines AG
"Flying High: Austrian Airlines' Strategy" – Annette Mann | Banking on Success
Uncover the strategies that keep Austrian Airlines competitive in a challenging market! Annette Mann discusses Austrian Airlines' ...
About Annette Mann
Annette Mann, CEO of Austrian Airlines, has been discussing the airline's financial and operational challenges in several media appearances. In a July 2026 interview on Ö3, she described the airline's per-passenger profit as approximately €5, contrasting it with Austria's €12 air travel tax and stating that total taxes and fees per departing flight from Vienna amount to around €45. She also discussed her management style, describing herself as a "systematic, logical person" who believes large companies require structure rather than rigid rules. Mann noted that she does not use a company car or chauffeur and works from a small office. In a June 2026 podcast, Mann stated that the airline's kerosene supply is secure for the summer travel season and that customers can book with confidence. She announced a gradual rollout of Starlink internet on all flights and discussed the potential addition of a 13th and 14th long-haul aircraft, which she said would create 350 high-quality jobs per plane. In a May 2026 interview, Mann described 2026 as a difficult year for Austrian Airlines due to the Iran-Iraq war causing a global kerosene shortage and the suspension of flights to five destinations in the East, including Tel Aviv. She criticized Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary's approach to the Vienna hub, calling it "blackmail," and stated that Austria has become the second most expensive aviation location in Europe over the past five to ten years.
Transcript (6 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
I guess there will be also kind of competition between the airlines or also benchmarking in that respect. Also from outside there's a lot of change, low-cost carriers coming in, destroying the market most probably. How and where do you position Austrian in that respect? How do you see it now? And also strategically going forward within not only Lufthansa but overall in central eastern Europe in our markets where we operate. Mhm.
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Annette Mann0:31
Yes, we have a lot of brands and it changed a bit from being competitors, that was the case for many years, and it becomes more collaborative because the understanding is well we have to stick together and we have to act as a team and as a family in order to be competitive out there in the world. I mean especially aviation in Europe has become really a tough business. Why? Because over the last 20 years yes there was the rise of the low-cost carriers with a totally different business model. Super successful. So I admire that a lot. That's very professional. But it's very different to a network airline. And so that has given us a hard time. And the other thing is I mean the Americans are really strong but especially the Gulf carriers and Turkish airlines, I mean these countries they have really understood that aviation is a strategic industry where they can drive their location factors right. And also the Chinese are really aggressively getting into the market. So the competition is out there and not within the group. And that's I think really a basic belief which we have to have. And so yes we benchmark each other but very much these days to better understand what can I learn from each other, which is great. Where do I see Austrian there? Austrian is probably the brand which stands most for hospitality and warmth and warmheartedness, and also is operationally extremely successful. So we're super stable. We have really high punctuality ratings all that. And so people really like so when we look at our customers and how they rate us we have always very high scores. The downside of Austrian is a bit that we operate here in a market which is quite tough. Yes Vienna is a big city but there is little industry, there's not many global headquarters where there would be a lot of business travel right. So it's a lot of tourists and we have by far the highest share of low-cost competition at our hub, so we're at about 30%. All the other hubs in Lufthansa group it's more like single-digit. And so that gives us a hard time to really reach the level of profitability that is actually needed and expected within the group. So again quality is really high but we always are challenged on our profitability. Not because you're here but I can confirm the quality is great.
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Interviewer3:35
So I really love to travel that both of us are traveling quite a lot central eastern Europe and there is 99% of Austrian going there and I think hospitality is your cabin crew are great whichever day and time we are boarding there everybody's super friendly. And I was about because you've mentioned the CEO, at least I always connected Austrian with the airline for central and eastern Europe also because in my coverage I was and I'm still very often traveling. And you've mentioned the competition of the other airlines like Turkish and others. Is there, this is now a question of maybe personal curiosity, so regionally what is Austrian standing for?
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Annette Mann4:20
Yeah, we still have a very very strong footprint in south southeast Europe of course. And we also now after corona we again want to strengthen that and very much looking into that. Basically when you look at our network it's 360 in Europe right, you can't just focus on one area. And of course in summer it's a very touristic portfolio all over the Mediterranean, very strong traffic streams for example to Spain and also to Greece. But for example also now the Nordics are coming. And so we always have to look into opportunities. And well there's some backbones like southeast Europe and always opportunities you just have to take. When it comes to longhaul, the focus is clearly on the North Atlantic routes. Why? Because I mean this is quite good business and also in the joint venture with United that's strong business for the whole Lufthansa group and also quite good business. And it becomes more and more difficult to fly to the east because of the competition with carriers where it becomes more and more tough to compete because they have totally different frameworks. I mean if you look into Turkey right, they want to push aviation and they do everything very much state driven as well policy the market.
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Interviewer6:00
Absolutely.
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Annette Mann6:03
And so in Europe over the last few years it was a lot about how can we tax aviation more and how can we make the life of aviation harder. Just from one year to the other, just to give you a figure, with the new regulation just from 24 now to 25 we have 43 million euros higher cost just out of the staff mandate and the ETS which got more strict, while we had a result of 76 million euros. So I mean it's nearly two-thirds of our profit right, which is just additional cost now from one year to the other just out of EU regulation. And that's something and that's just one piece of regulation. And that's just something Turkish or also the Gulf carriers they don't have, rather the opposite, they get a lot of support. And this makes it super difficult to fly to the east. And so to the west this is a bit less because yes there are people who are actually from central Europe first fly to Istanbul to then go via the Atlantic, that is happening quite often. But still it's not the majority. And so this is why it's easier to go to the west.