Austrian Airlines announced on December 15, 2025, that it is cancelling its wet lease contract with Swedish carrier Braathens Regional Airlines with immediate effect.
This sudden decision is reportedly motivated by Braathens having failed to pass an operational audit. According to Austrian Airlines, the Swedish operator does not meet the operational standards required by the Lufthansa Group.
Since February 2024, Braathens had been operating a number of short haul routes out of Vienna (VIE) on behalf of the Austrian flag carrier.
The current wet lease agreement, through which Braathens provided both aircraft and crew to operate certain services for Austrian Airlines, has been in place since 2024. At the time, Austrian Airlines explained that it had hired the services of Braathens because it required smaller aircraft for some feeder routes where business demand was too low for the Embraer E195 aircraft (the smallest aircraft in Austrian Airlines’ fleet).
This is how, under this scheme, services from Vienna to Belgrade (BEG), Bologna (BLQ), Graz (GRZ), Klagenfurt (KLU), Košice (KSC), Leipzig (LEJ), Warsaw (WAW) and Zagreb (ZAG) have since been operated fully or partially by Braathens ATR72-600 turboprops.
According to data from ch-aviation, as of December 16, 2025, Braathens operates an active fleet of 16 ATR72-600 turboprop aircraft. The Swedish firm also used to have a subsidiary, Braathens International Airways, which operated Airbus jet aircraft and entered bankruptcy proceedings in September 2025.
Austrian Airlines has scrambled to find alternatives since cancelling the contract in a bid to minimize disruption to its flight program.