Due to AUA strike

The phones are now ringing off the hook at travel agencies

The AUA planes remain on the ground until midday on Friday, and the travel agencies are feeling the customers' anger.

(Bild: Scharinger Daniel)

The two-day AUA strike has of course also had an impact on Upper Austrian guests. However, the airline's automatic rebookings are sometimes impossible. The travel agencies are trying to help as best they can and find a suitable solution.

"You have such a nice vacation, and then it's ruined because of such nonsense," says Werner Mader - head of the travel agency of the same name and chairman of the Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce - who understands the anger of AUA customers. From Thursday up to and including Friday lunchtime, 400 AUA flights will be canceled due to the strike. "The impact is huge and immense. The automatic rebookings by AUA are sometimes impossible. We are trying to explain or improve this," says Ervin Sebestyn, Managing Director of Reisewelt in Linz.

Replacement flight offered only three days later
A few examples: A group of 14 travelers would originally have flown home from Amsterdam on Thursday evening, but now have to take a flight first thing in the morning. A return flight from Bologna on Thursday was also canceled, but the replacement flight offered by AUA does not leave until Sunday. And instead of a direct flight from Valencia to Vienna on Friday, a customer has to wait a day longer and "may" fly home with a stopover in Frankfurt. But long-distance travel is also affected. For example, the flight from Bangkok to Vienna was canceled and will take off a day later.

The strikes are very bad for the entire industry. It only directs customers to other airlines.

Harald Schobesberger, Inhaber des Reisebüros Urlaubswelt in Schörfling/Attersee

Package tour legally well covered
"It's annoying that the dispute is being carried out on the backs of people who can't help it. In future, many people will think to themselves, 'I'll just find an airline from the Arab world - like Fly Emirates - where there are never strikes. We didn't cause it, we feel the customers' displeasure and we don't earn anything from the extra work we have to do," says Mader. Harald Schobesberger (Urlaubswelt, Schörfling am Attersee) also finds the strike during the Easter period "mean": "With a package holiday, you are very well covered, the organizer has to take care of it. If you've organized everything yourself, it's stupid."