The night flight from Vienna to Tel Aviv, OS 859, was supposed to take off at 11:10 p.m., but was postponed to 6:40 a.m. However, it will probably not be carried out due to the closure of Israeli airspace, which means that the passengers on the return flight (Tel Aviv-Vienna, OS 860) are stranded in Israel for the time being.
As AUA spokeswoman Sophie Matkovits confirmed to the aviation magazine “Austrian Wings”, the AUA will also close the destinations Amman (Jordan) and Erbil (Kurdish province in Iraq) until at least April 15th. “The safety of our guests and crews is always our top priority,” emphasized Matkovits. The flights to Tehran were therefore suspended on April 12th.
An AUA long-haul jet from Bangkok to Vienna had to take a detour and therefore stop over in Athens to pick up fuel. The Boeing plane took off from Bangkok shortly following midnight as flight OS 026 and was actually supposed to land in Vienna at 5:35 a.m. But because the airspace of Jordan, Iran, Iraq and Israel, among others, was closed due to Iran’s nighttime air attack on Israel, a safe non-stop flight to Vienna would no longer have been possible due to the increased fuel consumption. That’s why the pilots decided to make a stopover in Athens, reported “Austrian Wings”. There the machine received fresh fuel. The “Papa Delta” finally reached Schwechat airport a few hours late in the early morning and touched down safely on runway 34 at around 9:19 a.m.
According to the Reuters news agency, the Lufthansa Group is suspending all flights to Amman, Beirut, Erbil and Tel Aviv until at least Monday. In addition, all Lufthansa Group flights will fly around the airspace over Israel, Jordan and Iraq until further notice, as the company further announced upon request. Flights that were already in the air last night were rerouted to new routes. According to the information, Lufthansa had already decided on Friday to fly around Iranian airspace up to and including Thursday and thus temporarily suspend flight connections to Tehran. The night flights to Tel Aviv were also suspended for the coming nights as a precaution.
