Level Europe

Level Europe is one of the shortest-lived airlines Vienna has ever seen: barely two years of flight operations, never more than a handful of aircraft, and then the abrupt end in the COVID crisis. For spotters the airline is still interesting. It stands for the power struggle over Niki’s legacy, for IAG’s multi-brand strategy – and for one of the most common mix-ups in the logbook: Level is not the same as Level Europe. This page puts the airline in context and shows you how to assign old sightings and photos cleanly.

Level Europe at a glance

Level Europe was an Austrian low-cost airline based at Vienna Airport. It was founded in November 2017 under the name Anisec Luftfahrt GmbH as a subsidiary of the Spanish Vueling. Via Vueling it belonged to the International Airlines Group, the group behind British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus.

The company never had a brand of its own in the classic sense. Its flights ran under Level, the brand name IAG introduced in 2017 for low-cost long-haul flights from Barcelona. The Vienna company brought this brand to short-haul. Only at the end of December 2019 did Anisec officially become Level Europe GmbH – just a few months before the pandemic brought flight operations to a halt.

The first flight departed on July 17, 2018 from Vienna to London Gatwick. From April 2019 a second base in Amsterdam-Schiphol was added. In mid-March 2020 operations were suspended because of COVID, and insolvency followed in June 2020. Level Europe never took off again afterward.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code VK: the company’s airline designator; IATA codes say nothing about the country.
• ICAO code FOO: appeared in the flight plan filed with air traffic control and thus also on flight trackers.
• Callsign AUSTROJET: how the crews identified themselves on the radio – a clear hint at the Austrian certification.

The ICAO code FOO in particular looks like a placeholder at first glance, but it was actually assigned. If you search old ADS-B records or photo databases today, you find Level Europe flights under this abbreviation. The callsign “AUSTROJET”, on the other hand, fits the home country: the operating permit, the so-called air operator certificate, came from Austria. What an AOC regulates and why a brand and the operating company often diverge is explained in the article AOC and operating permit.

Backstory: the struggle over Niki

To understand Level Europe you have to go back a step. In autumn 2017 the Air Berlin group collapsed. The Austrian subsidiary Niki was initially supposed to go to Lufthansa. On December 13, 2017, however, Lufthansa pulled out because the EU Commission had signaled concerns. One day later Niki filed for insolvency and stopped flight operations.

This started a race for the remains of the airline. On December 29, 2017, IAG announced it wanted to take over large parts of Niki for 36.5 million euros – including 15 Airbus A321s and traffic rights in Düsseldorf, Munich, Vienna, Zurich and Palma de Mallorca. A new Austrian Vueling subsidiary was planned, which was to take over around 740 of Niki’s roughly 1,000 employees. The already founded Anisec was exactly the right vehicle for it.

But then the proceedings moved to Austria, because a Berlin court ruled that only an Austrian court had jurisdiction. In the new bidding process, Niki Lauda’s Laudamotion prevailed in January 2018. Laudamotion later became today’s Lauda Europe of the Ryanair Group.

IAG did not give up on Vienna anyway. Instead of taking over the Niki fleet, it started in summer 2018 with its own company Anisec and a few used aircraft. Vienna thus became the scene of a low-cost battle in which, besides Level, Laudamotion, Eurowings and Wizz Air took part – and in which Austrian Airlines defended its home base.

The launch in Vienna in 2018

At the end of June 2018, IAG announced it would deploy four Airbus A321s, previously flown by Air Berlin, under the Level brand in Vienna. For the period from July 17 to August 13, 2018, connections to 14 destinations were planned. The kickoff was a promotion that got a lot of attention in Austria: 50,000 seats on flights between mid-July and the end of September 2018 were sold for one cent per ticket.

On July 17, 2018, the first flight to London Gatwick took off. IAG’s leadership spoke at the time of growth plans of up to 30 aircraft in Vienna. That never happened: the Vienna fleet stayed small, and the routes concentrated on classic city and vacation destinations in Europe.

For spotters in Schwechat, Level was thus a manageable but visible presence. The based aircraft stayed overnight in Vienna, departed in the morning on their rotations and came back in the evening. If you were at the airport regularly back then, you had a good chance of getting all the Level A321s in your logbook within a few weeks. Where to stand in Vienna today is shown in the spotting guide for Vienna-Schwechat.

Second base: Amsterdam from 2019

In 2019 another base was added: from April 6, 2019, Level Europe also flew from Amsterdam-Schiphol. Seven routes were planned for the launch. The aircraft for it – three Airbus A320s – came from Vueling between March and August 2019.

Strictly speaking, Level Europe was thus no longer a purely Austrian affair: a company with an Austrian AOC and OE- registrations flew from a Dutch hub. Such arrangements are possible in the EU thanks to the single aviation market. For you as a spotter this means: an A320 with Level titles and an OE- registration in Amsterdam was no stray, but a regular based aircraft. The best locations at the airport are described in the spotting guide for Schiphol.

The fleet: A320 and A321

Level Europe flew exclusively jets of the Airbus A320 family. At the time of the insolvency in June 2020, the fleet consisted of six aircraft with an average age of just under ten years:

Type	Number (June 2020)	Seats	Origin	Spotter note
Airbus A321-200	4	210–212	previously with Air Berlin	Backbone of the Vienna base, long fuselage with large exit doors ahead of and behind the wing
Airbus A320-200	2	180	previously with Vueling	Taken over for Amsterdam, shorter than the A321

The Airbus A321 was the workhorse of the Vienna base. With over 200 seats it fit the low-cost approach well: many seats per departure, few aircraft, short turnaround times. The Airbus A320 was used mainly in Amsterdam. All aircraft belonged to the first generation of the A320 family, so not the neo. The manufacturer is Airbus.

Because the fleet was so small, it is worth looking at individual registrations with Level Europe. Since the aircraft previously flew for Air Berlin and Vueling and changed operators again after 2020, each of them has a varied registration history – a rewarding topic for anyone who collects registrations rather than types. How such changes work is explained in the article on re-registrations. More on the system of Austrian registrations can be found in the article on Austrian OE registrations.

A320 or A321? Quick way to tell them apart

Both types had the same look at Level Europe, so only a look at the fuselage helps. The A321 is clearly longer and has an additional fuselage extension ahead of and behind the wing. The fastest way to recognize it is the emergency exits: on the A321 there are large exit doors ahead of and behind the wing, on the A320 only small overwing exits. A detailed guide can be found under Telling the A318, A319, A320 and A321 apart reliably.

Level or Level Europe? The most important distinction

This is where most errors happen in the logbook. Between 2017 and 2020, three different companies flew under the name Level – and today a fourth arrangement still flies under the name.

The Spanish Level started on June 1, 2017 with Airbus A330-200s from Barcelona-El Prat. These aircraft were initially flown by Iberia, and later the IAG subsidiary OpenSkies was added for flights from Paris Orly, whose end IAG announced in July 2020. Only on December 3, 2024 did Level receive an operating permit of its own, and today it flies under the IATA code LL. Iberia now holds the majority.

The rule of thumb for your archive: widebody with Level titles equals Spanish long-haul, narrowbody jet with Level titles equals Level Europe. The locations fit too – A330s in Barcelona or Paris, A320s and A321s in Vienna or Amsterdam. Why groups like IAG work with so many brands and operators at all is described in the article on multi-brand strategies.

How to recognize Level Europe aircraft

The aircraft wore the Level branding with the “Level” titles on the fuselage. As a result the Vienna jets hardly differed visually from the long-haul A330s – the difference lay in the aircraft type, not in the paint.

Because some aircraft had previously flown for Air Berlin and Vueling, transitional states could also show up in early pictures, such as remnants of old liveries or neutral areas. Such mixed pictures are typical of rapid fleet changes. Also look for the OE- registration on the fuselage: it immediately distinguishes the Vienna company from the Spanish Level, whose aircraft carry EC- registrations.

The end: COVID and insolvency in 2020

Until early 2020, Level Europe held its ground in the fiercely contested Vienna market. Then came the pandemic. In mid-March 2020, like almost all European airlines, the airline suspended flight operations, and the aircraft stayed on the ground.

In May 2020, IAG floated a surprising idea: according to reports, it offered the Austrian government that Level Europe could take over long-haul flights if Austrian Airlines had to go insolvent. That did not happen – Austrian received a rescue package, and Level Europe itself slid deeper into crisis.

On June 18, 2020, management announced it would file for insolvency; this was submitted on June 19, 2020. A resumption of flight operations was no longer planned. Level Europe thus ended after barely two years, without ever taking off again after the COVID shutdown. Level Europe joins a long list of European airline failures summarized in the overview Major airline failures in Europe.

Level Europe compared with other Vienna airlines

Level Europe joins a series of Vienna airlines that are history today. Niki flew from 2003 to 2017, Lauda Air shaped the airport for decades. Laudamotion and later Lauda Europe joined the Vienna low-cost market, and Austrian Airlines remained the constant at the hub. For Vienna spotters this series tells a piece of local history: anyone going through old logbooks finds Level Europe as a short chapter between the Niki collapse and the COVID crisis.

Even compared with other IAG companies, Level Europe is a special case. Iberia Express and Vueling work with their own brands and large fleets, whereas Level Europe was a small operator that carried someone else’s brand into new markets. The concept was flexible – but also vulnerable when the market collapsed in 2020.

Common mix-ups

• Equating Level Europe with the Spanish Level – same brand, but a different company, a different country, different aircraft.
• Taking Anisec for an airline of its own – Anisec was just the former company name of Level Europe.
• Taking Level Europe for Niki’s successor – IAG lost the bidding process, Niki went to Laudamotion.
• Taking FOO for a placeholder – the ICAO code was genuinely assigned and appears in old tracker data.
• Logging an A321 as an A320 – watch the emergency exits, the A321 has large doors ahead of and behind the wing.
• Assigning Level sightings after 2020 to Level Europe – after the insolvency the Vienna company no longer flew.

Conclusion

Level Europe was a short but revealing chapter of European aviation. From IAG’s failed Niki deal came a small Vienna company that brought the Level brand to short-haul with A320s and A321s, opened a second base in Amsterdam and went under in the COVID crisis. For spotters one lesson remains above all: brand and operator are two different things. If you note down type, registration and ICAO code as well, you can assign Level sightings reliably.