Aeroflot, a Russian airline, seemed to be interested in placing a bid on purchasing the controlling shares of Austrian Airlines, but have made the decision not to, despite the legacy airline being seen as the potential buyer for a while now. Reuters News was told by Aeroflot Russian Airlines that purchasing Austrian Airlines was just too risky of a deal and not worth it, even though there are potential advantages. The decision of Aeroflot to forgo the bid raised some curiosity among experts in the industry since the airline has been seen as interested in increasing its operations in continental Europe, as they have purchased some shares for an intermediate-sized carrier. Austrian Airlines seemed to fit in with the plans of Aeroflot the best since they have a strong destinations network in Central and Eastern Europe, along with the Middle East and the West. Aeroflot had been previously interested in purchasing Czech Airlines and Alitalia as well, which have both moved to being privatized.

Now Austrian Airlines will find theirselves with 2 probable bidders, one being Lufthansa and the other being Turkish Airlines. The executive of the flag airline appears to clearly favor Lufthansa over Turkish Airlines, however, during their last meeting, the Russian airline still continued to come up as a probable partner and buyer. The government of Austria has made indications that they plan to continue with the process of privatizing the airlilne and may complete the process prior to the end of 2008. As Aeroflot seems to be out of consideration now, the chances of Lufthansa purchasing the carrier have improved now, despite the flag airline not indicating yet if they plan to bid on Austrian Airlines or not.

Learn more about this at: www.austrianairlines.com