Austrian Airlines

Updated: October 2026 – Red tail, white arrow, “Servus” on the belly: Austrian Airlines is one of those airlines you can identify without binoculars. The codes are more interesting, because OS and AUA don’t seem to match at first glance. And right now the fleet deserves a close look, because Austrian is in the middle of an overhaul that is meant to leave only two aircraft families at the end. This page puts the airline in context, explains the codes and identification features, and shows which types you should photograph before they’re gone.

Austrian Airlines at a glance

Austrian Airlines is Austria’s network airline. All of its traffic is built around a single hub: Vienna Airport in Schwechat. From there it serves destinations in Europe and the Middle East, as well as long-haul routes to North America and Asia. The company headquarters has also been on the airport grounds since 2007.

Since 2009, Austrian has belonged to the Lufthansa Group, together with Lufthansa, Swiss, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings. Even earlier, in March 2000, Austrian had joined Star Alliance. For you as a spotter, that means Austrian jets show up mostly where the group is strong, and in Vienna itself many Star Alliance partners sit at the neighboring gates.

The business model is classic: feeder flights from Central and Eastern Europe supply the long-haul network, and connecting passengers from the west use Vienna as a gateway to the east. That very position between Western and Eastern Europe has been the hub’s selling point for decades.

Codes and callsign: OS, AUA, AUSTRIAN

Few European airlines have identifiers that mislead as often as Austrian’s. If you expect “AU” or “AT” as the IATA code, you’ll search in vain.

Identifier	Value	Where you see it
IATA code	OS	Flight number on the departure board, ticket and boarding pass
ICAO code	AUA	Flight plan, ADS-B tracker, air traffic control
Callsign	AUSTRIAN	Radio communication between cockpit and controllers
Country prefix	OE-	Registration on the tail and under the wings
Hub	VIE	Vienna-Schwechat Airport

AUA is more than a code here: in Austria it has been the common short name of the airline for decades. Officially the company operates under the “Austrian” brand, but in everyday speech and in the press “die AUA” stubbornly remains.

A second stumbling block is codeshares and wet leases. A flight number with OS only tells you who sells the flight – not necessarily who operates it. For example, Austrian has recently filled gaps in its regional fleet with Embraer jets from sister airline Air Dolomiti. Only the registration tells you what is actually in front of your lens.

A short history: from the Viscount to the Lufthansa Group

Today’s Austrian Airlines was founded in Vienna on September 30, 1957. There was already a predecessor in the interwar period: Österreichische Luftverkehrs AG (ÖLAG), founded in 1923, which disappeared from the scene after the “Anschluss” of Austria in 1938.

Austrian flew its first scheduled flight on March 31, 1958 with a chartered Vickers Viscount from Vienna via Zurich to London. Things moved quickly after that:

• 1963 brought the first jet into the fleet, the Sud Aviation Caravelle, and domestic flights began the same year.
• In the late 1960s and early 1970s, aircraft of the DC-9 family gradually replaced the Viscount and Caravelle; from 1980 the DC-9 Super 80 followed.
• 1989 saw the Airbus A310 bring back long-haul flying, including to New York and Tokyo.
• 2000 Austrian joined Star Alliance.
• 2004 the flight operations of Lauda Air and Austrian were merged; Lauda Air initially lived on as a brand and was fully absorbed into Austrian in 2012.
• 2009 Lufthansa completed the takeover.
• 2012 the subsidiary Tyrolean temporarily took over flight operations, in 2015 they returned to Austrian and Tyrolean was merged into the parent company.

Incidentally, Austrian’s last Boeing 767-300ERs date from the Lauda era: Lauda Air took them brand new in the late 1990s. This piece of company history won’t be in front of your lens for much longer, though.

Livery and identification features

The color scheme has always followed the Austrian flag: red-white-red. The current version goes back to a brand relaunch that Austrian unveiled in April 2018. The first aircraft in the new look was the Boeing 777-200ER with the registration OE-LPF. Because the fleet is only repainted during major maintenance downtimes, the changeover stretched over years.

What changed in 2018 – and how to tell the new paint scheme from the old one:

Austrian also maintains special liveries. One example is the Airbus A320 with the registration OE-LBO, which received a retro livery in the style of the 1980s in 2019. For many spotters, one-offs like these are the real highlights – and exactly the aircraft you should track deliberately instead of hoping for luck.

The 2026 fleet: an overhaul in full swing

In 2026, Austrian operates around 68 aircraft across five families. This very variety is what the airline wants to get rid of: the stated goal is a fleet of only two families – the Airbus A320 family on short- and medium-haul routes and the Boeing 787-9 on long-haul.

Type	Use	Status for spotters
Airbus A320ceo	European routes	large stock, many jets older than 20 years, being replaced step by step
Airbus A320neo	European routes	more brand-new aircraft are coming, the first neos are to be replaced later
Airbus A321 / A321neo	European routes with high demand	older A321s are being replaced by A321neos
Embraer 195	Domestic and short international routes	phasing out by the end of 2028
Boeing 767-300ER	Long-haul	last aircraft, retirement by the end of 2026 according to trade press
Boeing 777-200ER	Long-haul to North America and Asia	largest aircraft in the fleet, being replaced step by step by the 787-9
Boeing 787-9	Long-haul	type of the future, fleet is growing

Short- and medium-haul

The backbone is the A320 family. The Lufthansa Group has allocated eleven brand-new A320neos and six A321neos to Austrian, with the first deliveries announced from summer 2026. Some of them replace Austrian’s first A320neos, which fly with different engines – the group wants to standardize the fleet. The six older A321s are to be replaced one for one by A321neos, and many A320ceos will disappear over the coming years. You’ll find manufacturer background on the Airbus page.

The Embraer 195s are the jets Austrian used for a long time on domestic routes and shorter connections. The airline is handing them over by the end of 2028, most of them move within the group to Air Dolomiti, and some are being sold. How the smaller sister of the type is built is explained on the Embraer E190 page – the E195 is the stretched variant of the same family.

Long-haul

On long-haul, Austrian flies three Boeing types. The 767-300ERs date from the Lauda Air era and are the oldest widebody jets in the fleet; their retirement has been postponed several times, and according to trade press the last scheduled flight is now due in early December 2026. The 777-200ERs are Austrian’s largest aircraft and operate on the high-demand routes to North America and Asia. They, too, are to gradually give way to the 787-9 in the coming years.

The future belongs to the Boeing 787-9. Austrian took over the first examples secondhand at short notice in 2024, more have arrived since, and by the end of the decade long-haul is meant to consist only of 787-9s.

Spotting tips: where to get Austrian in front of your lens

In Vienna

Vienna is the only place where you can see the complete Austrian fleet in one day – from the Embraer through the A320 family to the 777 and 787. Long-haul departures typically cluster at certain times of day; if you are after widebody jets, plan your visit using the schedule or a tracker. Which runways are in use at any moment depends on the wind, as everywhere – why that is decisive for your location is explained in the article on the runway direction in use at the airport.

In Germany and Switzerland

Outside Austria you meet Austrian mainly at the hubs of its group sisters. Austrian flies regularly from Vienna to the Lufthansa hubs Frankfurt and Munich, as well as to Zurich, Swiss’s hub. In Munich, the visitors’ hill is a proven location for picking out the red-white-red jets among the Lufthansa aircraft. According to booking portals, Düsseldorf is also in Austrian’s network; check the current schedule before you go. From the observation deck you then have a good view of the movements on the apron.

On these routes you mostly see the A320 family and – as long as they still fly – Embraer 195s. Austrian widebody jets are the exception outside Vienna.

Light and perspective

The strong red of the tail looks best in side light; in backlight it quickly drowns. How to calculate the sun position for your spot in advance is shown in the guide to the sun position at the photo spot. For the “Servus” on the belly, on the other hand, you need a position under the approach path – a motif that doesn’t exist in this form on other airlines.

If you’re just starting out, the guide Plane spotting for beginners covers the basics of equipment, spots and etiquette.

Common mix-ups

• Guessing the IATA code – Austrian’s IATA code is OS. “AU” or “AT” seem obvious, but they are false leads.
• Confusing Austrian and Air Dolomiti – Embraer jets with an OS flight number may be operated by Air Dolomiti. The registration and livery show who is really flying.
• Treating old and new paint as the same – red engines and an arrow on the forward fuselage point to the older design, white engines and large titles to the current one.
• Taking every OE registration for Austrian – OE- stands for Austria. Other Austrian operators also fly with this prefix.
• Taking Austrian for a low-cost carrier – Austrian is a network airline with connecting traffic and long-haul, and the low-cost carriers in Vienna are other companies.
• Treating the Embraer 195 and E190 as the same – both belong to the same family, but the E195 is longer and offers more seats.

Conclusion

Austrian Airlines is a rewarding airline for spotters: the livery is unmistakable, the “Servus” is a detail with recognition value, and right now the fleet offers variety that won’t exist in a few years. If you keep the codes OS and AUA straight, you’ll find every Austrian flight on the tracker – and can deliberately hunt the types that are about to disappear.