Vienna International Airport
Vienna Schwechat International Airport (German:
Flughafen Wien-Schwechat), located 18
kilometers (11
miles) southeast of
Vienna, is the busiest airport in
Austria. It is often referred to as
Schwechat, the name of the nearby town. The airport is capable of handling
wide-body aircraft such as the
Boeing 747 and
Airbus A340. The airport is the hub of
Austrian Airlines and its subsidiaries, as well as budget airline
Niki.
Originally built as a military airport in
1938, it was taken over by the
British in
1945. In
1954, the
Betriebsgesellschaft was founded, and the airport replaced
Aspern as Vienna's (and Austria's) principal aerodrome. There was just one
runway, which in
1959 was expanded to measure 3,000 metres. The erection of the new airport building starting in
1960. In
1972 another runway was built.
The airport received Olympic teams as Austria has twice hosted the
Winter Olympics.
Pope John Paul II also used the airport during his visits to Austria. On
December 27,
1985, the
El Al ticket counter was attacked by
Palestinian terrorists. (See
Rome and Vienna Airport Attacks.)
The airport formerly featured a
Harrods, but it closed in
2003.
Presently, Vienna International Airport has two (actually three) terminals. A provisory
Terminal (1A) was built to offer more place for
low cost carriers. In 2006, the airport started building a new terminal, SKYLINK, which makes the airport more capable of dealing with higher passenger rates (2006: 16 millions). This new Terminal makes the airport capable of handling bigger aircraft, such es the
Airbus A380.
Because of its constant growth in passenger numbers and freight, Vienna International Airport has decided to enlarge
Austria's biggest airport with several new and respectively adapted buildings.
* New
Tower: A new
Tower was built, directly besides the World Trade Center. With its 109 meters of height, it allows a free overlook of the entire airport area and it offers another spectacular sight: a night laser show, which should welcome the passengers even from the airplane.
* New Terminal: Due to constant passenger and freight growth, Vienna International Airport has planned to build another
Terminal, SKYLINK, which should be able to compensate higher passenger rates. Construction started in 2006 and will last until late 2008. If there is still an enormous amount of passenger growth, the Masterplan 2015 sees an enlargement of SKYLINK.
* Third
Runway: Due to higher aviation rates, a third runway will be necessary for the airport. A mediation process was held, and the start of the construction of the third runway will be in 2009.
* Railway station: The underground railway station will be enlarged and a connection to
Bratislava will be constructed. Additionally the
CAT, City Airport Train, which connects the center of
Vienna with the airport in just 16 minutes, will receive a new underground railway station.
The following airlines fly to Vienna International Airport:
*
Adria Airways (Frankfurt, Ljubljana)
*
Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)
*
Aer Lingus (Dublin)
*
AirBaltic (Riga)
*
Air Berlin (Berlin-Tegel, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hanover, Heraklion, Kos, Málaga, Munster/Osnabruck, Nuremberg)
*
Air Dolomiti (Verona)
*
Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
*
Air Malta (Malta)
*
Air Moldova (Chişinău)
*
Air Via (Bourgas)
*
Alitalia (Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino)
*
Austrian Airlines (Amman, Amsterdam, Antalya, Athens, Baku, Bangkok, Beijing, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin-Tegel, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Cairo, Calvi, Cancún [seasonal], Colombo, Copenhagen, Corfu, Damascus, Delhi, Dnepropetrovsk, Dubai, Dubrovnik, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Fuerteventura, Funchal, Genoa, Heraklion, Holguin, Hurghada, Kathmandu, Kiev, Kuala Lumpur [until March 2007], Lamezia, Larnaca [seasonal], Las Palmas, Lisbon, London-Heathrow, Luxor, Mahon, Málaga, Male, Mauritius [seasonal], Melbourne [until March 2007], Milan-Malpensa, Montego Bay, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Mumbai, Munich, New York-JFK, Oslo, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Phuket [seasonal], Poznan, Priština, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Rhodes, Sarajevo, Shanghai-Pudong, Sharm El Sheik, Singapore [until March 2007], Skopje, Sofia, Split, Stockholm, Sydney [until March 2007], Tbilisi, Tehran-Mehrabad, Tel Aviv, Tenerife-South, Tobago, Tokyo-Narita, Toronto, Tuzla, Varadero, Washington-Dulles, Yerevan, Zürich)
**
Austrian Arrows operated by
Tyrolean Airways (Altenrhein, Amsterdam, Ankara [seasonal], Barcelona, Basel/Mulhouse, Belgrade, Berlin-Tegel, Bologna, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Chişinău, Cluj, Cologne/Bonn, Copenhagen, Dnepropetrovsk, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Florence, Frankfurt, Geneva, Gothenburg, Graz, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Innsbruck, Istanbul-Atatürk, Kharkov, Kiev, Klagenfurt, Kosice, Krakow, Krasnodar, Leipzig/Halle, Linz, London-Heathrow, Luxembourg, Lviv, Lyon, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Minsk, Munich, Newcastle [seasonal], Nice, Nuremberg, Podgorica, Prague, Priština [seasonal], Riga, Rome-Fiumicino, Rostov, Salzburg, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Split, St. Petersburg (RU), Stockholm, Strasbourg, Stuttgart, Thessaloniki [seasonal], Timişoara, Tirana, Tripoli, Turin, Varna, Venice, Vilnius, Warsaw, Zagreb, Zürich)
*
Austrian Airtransport *
Belavia (Minsk)
*
Blu-express (Rome-Fiumicino)
*
British Airways (London-Heathrow)
**
BA Connect (Manchester (UK))
*
Bulgaria Air (Sofia, Varna)
*
Bulgarian Air Charter (Bourgas)
*
China Airlines (Abu Dhabi, Taipei-Chiang Kai Shek)
*
Croatia Airlines (Dubrovnik, Split, Zagreb)
*
Cyprus Airways (Larnaca)
*
Czech Airlines (Prague)
*
Emirates (Dubai)
*
EgyptAir (Cairo)
*
El Al (Tel Aviv)
*
European Air Transport (Brussels)
*
EVA Air (Bangkok, Taipei-Chiang Kai Shek)
*
Finnair (Helsinki)
*
Free Bird Airlines (Antalya)
*
Georgian Airways (Tbilisi)
*
Germanwings (Cologne/Bonn, Stuttgart)
*
Iberia (Barcelona, Madrid)
*
InterSky (Friedrichshafen)
*
Iran Air (Tehran-Mehrabad)
*
Jat Airways (Belgrade)
*
Job Air (Ostrava)
*
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Amsterdam)
**
KLM Cityhopper (Amsterdam)
*
Korean Air Cargo
*
LOT Polish Airlines (Krakow, Warsaw)
*
LTU (Antalya, Hurghada, Sharm el Sheikh)
*
LTU Austria (Ibiza, Karpathos, Kos, Salzberg, Samos)
*
Lufthansa (Berlin-Tegel, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Stuttgart)
*
Luxair (Luxembourg)
*
MAT Macedonian Airlines (Ohrid, Skopje)
*
Malév Hungarian Airlines (Budapest)
*
MNG Airlines (Antalya)
*
Niki (Antalya, Faro, Frankfurt [starts October 30, 2006], Ibiza, London-Stansted, Málaga, Nuremberg, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Rome-Fiumicino, Zürich)
*
Olympic Airlines (Athens)
*
Onur Air (Istanbul)
*
Pegasus Airlines (Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman)
*
Qatar Airways (Doha)
*
Scandinavian Airlines System (Copenhagen)
*
SkyEurope (Charter Holiday Destinations)
*
SN Brussels Airlines (Brussels)
*
Spanair (Madrid)
*
SunExpress (Antalya)
*
Syrianair (Aleppo, Berlin-Tegel)
*
Swiss International Air Lines (Zürich)
*
Tarom (Bucharest-Otopeni, Cluj, Sibiu)
*
TNT Airways (Liege)
*
Tunisair (Monastir, Tunis)
*
Turkish Airlines (Ankara, Istanbul-Atatürk, Izmir, Samsun-Carsamba)
*
Ukraine International (Kiev-Borispol)
*
Viaggio Air (Sofia)
*
Vienna International Airport Homepage
