Photo: Gryffindor, panorama: Digon · License: Public Domain · Source: Wikimedia Commons
While Innsbruck was Tyrolean Airways’ home airport, Vienna-Schwechat developed into the actual hub through which most of the airline’s route network, and that of its parent Austrian Airlines, was operated.
From Air Force Base to Civil Airport
After the Second World War, the British occupying forces used the former Luftwaffe site at Schwechat-Haidfeld as “RAF Station Schwechat”. Civilian flights began as early as 1946, including services by British European Airways to London. On 14 June 1954, the newly founded airport operator Flughafen Wien AG officially opened the civil airport, and numerous airlines such as Air France, KLM, Pan Am, SAS and Swissair relocated there from Vienna’s earlier airfields at Tulln and Aspern.
Growth into an International Hub
In 1958, the newly founded Austrian Airlines began flight operations from Vienna and became the airport’s home carrier, a role it still holds today. The runway was extended to 3,000 metres in 1958, and a second runway was added in 1977 after years of planning and protests. The airport first exceeded one million passengers a year in 1966, and by 1980 that figure had reached 3.1 million.
Further major expansions followed: Pier East in 1988, Pier West in 1996, and finally Terminal 3 (“Skylink”) in 2011, by which time the airport handled around 22.1 million passengers a year. In 2019, Vienna reached a then-record 31.7 million passengers.
Significance for Tyrolean Airways
For Tyrolean Airways, Vienna-Schwechat was the central connecting airport from the 1998 takeover by the Austrian Airlines Group onward, from where the Tyrolean regional fleet provided feeder services to the parent company’s long-haul connections. After flight operations were merged in 2012, virtually all Austrian flights were formally carried out as “operated by Tyrolean”, many of them with Vienna as their pivot point.
Read on: The History of Tyrolean Airways · Austrian Airlines
Sources (selection)
Part of the Austrian aviation history section. An independent, private history project with no connection to Austrian Airlines AG or the Lufthansa Group.