Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) could be repositioned as a budget carrier under the name "Austrian Wings" as one of the various options CEO Jaan Albrecht is considering in order to make EUR200million (USD259.5million) in critical cost cuts.

Austrian newspaper, Die Presse, reports Austrian's existing fleet of six B767-300s would fit into Lufthansa's plans to develop a long haul budget carrier based on the Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int'l) and Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Atatürk) joint-venture carrier, Sun Express (XQ, Antalya). Sun Express CEO, Paul Schwaiger, also sits on Austrian's board of directors.

Among other cost-cutting measures under consideration is the removal of Austrian's B767 fleet in addition to its ageing Fokker Aircraft (Woensdrecht) fleet of fifteen Fokker 100s and six Fokker 70s. The move would also see 300 flight crew dismissed leaving only a very lean version of Austrian. The report claims Lufthansa would only consider this option if a new collective wage agreement between Austrian management and staff cannot be agreed to.

A board room meeting is due to be held later this week to consider the airline's operational future within the confines of the Lufthansa Group given the lack of agreement between management and unions over the forced move of all pilots and flight attendants from Austrian Airlines to Tyrolean Airways (VO, Innsbruck) two years ago.

Should the European Court of Justice follow the Austrian courts in ruling the move be reversed, Austrian would once more be burdened with an increased cost structure.