Good Connections

Austria’s regional airports are alive and kicking, with new services and connections that make travelling for Austrians and tourists easier and more direct. In Graz, Innsbruck, Linz and Salzburg airports, the numbers of travellers are growing, as is the variety of connections on offer. For November, the VR Travel Advisory takes a look at recent and soon-to-come changes in airline service offerings.

 

Salzburg

Civility has returned for travelers flying out of the Salzburg airport. For victims of the safety regulations on hand luggage, Salzburg offers a new service, allowing passengers to deposit items not allowed on board for a fee of €2. If they don’t intend to come back to Salzburg, they can have their things sent to their home address by mail, €10-15.

This winter, the airline Norwegian.no will be connecting the "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" Airport of Salzburg with the Polish capital of Warsaw (weekly from the end of December), Bergen (twice a week from the end of December) and the Norwegian capital of Oslo (weekly in December, twice a week beginning in January).

Ryanair will bring visitors to Salzburg from Stockholm, Gothenburg, Bristol, Liverpool and East Midlands. The low-cost carrier expects to have over 100.000 passengers on these routes until March, over half of which will be British and Swedish tourists. TUIfly however has reduced the frequency in its Salzburg-Düsseldorf route to three times a week and cancelled it Salzburg-Leipzig connection altogether.

 

Graz and Linz

Graz and Linz will both profit from new Ryanair services to Girona in Spain. The Irish carrier, which’s founder recently passed away, will fly these routes three times a week from the End of October. From November, Linz will also see weekly flights to the Turkish capital of Antalya operated by Sun Express. Since the beginning of September, Lufthansa has increased its service on the Graz-Stuttgart route to a third rotation Monday through Friday.

 

Innsbruck

As reported, the British low cost carrier easyJet will connect London Luton with Vienna daily beginning at the end of October. As of mid-December, the orange jets will also land in Innsbruck, coming from London Gatwick (six times a week) and Bristol (three times a week), with an Innsbruck-Liverpool service (three times a week) beginning in January.

In addition, FlyLAL, formerly Lithuanian Airlines, has announced it will fly to Innsbruck from Vilnius on Sundays, starting on the last Sunday of this year.

 

Friedrichshafen

Austria’s most western province, Vorarlberg, has a local airline called Intersky. However, lacking its own airport, Intersky flies out of the airport in Friedrichshafen, situated on the German side of Lake Constance. The newest flower in its bouquet is the Friedrichshafen-Rottderdam link, which will be served every Saturday starting in December.

 

Round the World for the New Year

If you have some €12.000 to spare, you might be interested in the special jubilee New Year’s package organized by the Austrian Aviation Association. With this 18-day program, the organisation celebrates not only the New Year but also its 50th birthday. An Austrian Airlines Airbus will carry passengers from Vienna to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Ayers Rock, Sydney, Rarotonga, Easter Island, Santiago de Chile, Ushuaia, El Calafate, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador de Bahia and back to Vienna. From Rarotonga smaller planes will carry the passengers round trip to Aitutaki, another one of the Cook Islands.