Turkish Airlines interested in buying stake in Austrian

On Wednesday, Turkish Airlines made public its interest in acquiring a stake in the Austrian national airline, which has been struggling financially for most of this year.

Turkish is the third airline to officially make its interest known, following on Lufthansa of Germany and S7 of Russia.

The Turkish national carrier contacted Austrian authorities “regarding our interest in the privatization tender of Austrian Airlines,” read a statement sent by the airline to the stock exchange in Istanbul.

The Austrian daily newspaper, Oesterreich, reports that a total of six airlines, including Air France-KLM, have come forward to express interest in acquiring the 42.75 per cent stake in Austrian Airlines, which is currently owned by the government holding company, OeIAG.

OeIAG will be making its decision by the end of 2008 regarding a new partner for the Austrian carrier, which currently has 900 million euros of debt and has reported a loss of 48.7 million euros for the first half of this year.

The government has agreed that the national airline could be privatized on the condition that a minority block of 25 per cent of the shares plus one share would remain in Austrian control. Most of the shares are owned at this time by private Austrian investors.

www.thy.com