Last July Austrian Airlines was trumpeting its rail-air agreement with OEBB.

In truth however it’s a brave airline which decides to drop its domestic feeders. With Austrian Airlines the decision was taken out of its hands as you will read in the above link.

When all is said and done there remain travellers who would rather fly direct from their local airport than spend time taking the train to a larger airport like Vienna.

We see this in the case of Switzerland where Swiss is pursuing a rail-air policy (refer to reader comments on the Forum and in the comments section of our reports) and now we see this in Austria.

Tiny Linz airport hopes Lufthansa will soon restore its feeder flight to Frankfurt.

Says Norbert Draskovits, MD of Linz airport, to Aerotelegraph, “Linz-Frankfurt is one of our strongest routes and was last served by Lufthansa four times a day.

“For many passengers, including numerous business people, the Frankfurt flights serve as feeders into the Lufthansa long-haul network to Asia and North America. However these markets are still not working due to numerous travel restrictions.

“For this reason the [restoration of the] connection has been postponed again and again.”

Salzburg, which pre-Covid had as many as four daily Lufthansa feeders to Frankfurt, now operates a single daily [to Frankfurt] but its is hoped to double this.

The reason for the demand is clear. Flight time Salzburg-Frankfurt is 65 minutes whereas anyone taking Austrian Airlines’ recommended rail-air connection via Vienna must allow seven or eight hours (according to schedules on lufthansa.com).

Austrian Airlines is a Lufthansa Group member. The loser here is Vienna airport.

Caution: Lufthansa says “Due to the current situation caused by Covid-19, we recommend that passengers check the current status of their flight prior to departure.”

linz-airport.com, salzburg-airport.com, lufthansa.com, austrian.com