DESTINATIONS Austria air-travel-52

TRAVEL TIPS

Air Travel

Flying time from New York to Vienna is eight hours; it's nine hours from Washington, D.C., and two hours from London. Airline and Airport Links.com has links to many of the world's airlines and airports. The Transportation Security Administration has answers for almost every security question that might come up.

Airports

Austria's major air gateway is Vienna's Schwechat Airport, about 19 km (12 miles) southeast of the city. Salzburg Airport is Austria's second-largest airport, about 4 km (2½ miles) west of the center. Just south of Graz, in Thalerhof, is the Graz Airport. Two other airports you might consider, depending on where in Austria you intend to travel, are Bratislava's M. R. Stefanik international airport in neighboring Slovakia, and Munich Airport International in Germany, not far from Salzburg. Bratislava is about 80 kms (50 miles) east of Vienna and is the hub for RyanAir, a budget carrier with low-cost connections to several European cities. Frequent buses can take you from Bratislava airport to central Vienna in about an hour. Consider Munich if your primary destination is western Austria, Salzburg, or Innsbruck.

Airport Information

Graz Airport (GRZ). 0316/2902–172; www.flughafen-graz.at.

M. R. Stefanik Airport (Bratislava, BTS). 421/233–0333–53; www.airport-bratislava.sk or www.bts.aero.

Munich Airport International (MUC). 49/899–7500; www.munich-airport.de.

Salzburg Airport (SZG). 0662/85800; www.salzburg-airport.com.

Schwechat Airport. 01/70070; www.viennaairport.com.

Ground Transportation and Transfers

The City Airport Train (CAT) provides service from Schwechat to downtown Vienna for €12 (one-way ticket, available at the CAT counter in the arrivals hall); the trip takes about 16 minutes. Travel into the city on the local S-Bahn takes about 25 minutes and costs €4.40 (ticket machines are on the platforms). City bus No. 2 runs every 10 minutes between both the city center and Salzburg's main train station and the airport; transfers cost €2.30. A taxi ride from the airport will be about €18. Schwechat Airport’s website has information for all ground transfers.

Ground Transportation Contacts

CAT. 01/7909–100; www.cityairporttrain.com.

S-Bahn. www.schnellbahn-wien.at.

Schwechat Airport. 01/7007–22233; www.viennaairport.com.

Vienna Bus. 01/7909–100; www.wienerlinien.at.

Flights

Austria is easy to reach from the United States. Austrian Airlines, Austria's flagship carrier and a Lufthansa subsidiary, flies nonstop to Vienna from the United States, departing from New York's JFK airport and Washington Dulles. From Canada, Austrian flies direct from Toronto. Its membership to the Star Alliance means that cities serviced by United Airlines have good connecting service to Austria. Austrian Airlines has an excellent network of domestic flights linking Vienna to regional cities like Salzburg and Graz. It's also possible to travel from North America with major U.S. carriers—including American, Delta, and United—but you'll be routed through a major European hub, such as London, Amsterdam, or Frankfurt, to Vienna. Leave plenty of time between connections (a minimum of three hours is ideal), as transfers at major airports inevitably take some time. Many international carriers also offer service to Vienna after stopovers at major European airports.

In addition to the major international carriers, European budget airlines, including RyanAir, Air Berlin, and its subsidiary, FlyNiki, offer low-cost flights from major cities around the Continent. These airlines are not normally recommended for connecting with transatlantic flights because of the occasional hassle of changing airports, but they provide a low-cost way of getting around. Although RyanAir has left some customers less than satisfied, Air Berlin and FlyNiki offer reliable service. They travel between Vienna, Graz, Linz, Klagenfurt, Salzburg, Innsbruck, and major hubs in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada. More recently, German charter carrier Condor also added flights between Vienna and Las Vegas to its schedule, as did Canadian charter airline Air Transat (www.airtransat.ca), with planes flying from Montreal and Toronto to Vienna.

Within Austria, Austrian Airlines and its subsidiary Austrian Arrows, operated by Tyrolean Airways, offer service from Vienna to Linz, Salzburg, Klagenfurt, and Innsbruck; they also provide routes to and from points outside Austria.

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