FLUG REVUE February 2004: Linz airport

LINZ AIRPORT BENEFITS REGION

By Dierk Wünsche

Linz airport was built by the German Air Force in 1938 as an airbase. But since the foundation of Flughafen Linz Betriebsgesellschaft in 1955, civil aircraft have been taking off and landing here as well. Today, as the airport goes about its civilian operations, there is little sign of the military partners on the “other side” of the ramp, as the number of movements of military aircraft in Hörsching, currently around 25 per day, is actually slightly down on ten years ago. But because the airfield is also used by the military, it offers an exceptionally good infrastructure.

Thus, for example, the 3,000 metre runway is an impressive 60 metres wide. It can not only comfortably accommodate the military jets stationed here, such as the Saab 105Ö, but also civil widebody types up to the Antonov An-225. Even Concorde came to Linz on more than one occasion. Moreover, the airport is equipped with a CAT IIIb instrument landing system. Linz, whose IATA code is “LOWL”, also serves as an alternate airfield for Salzburg airport, amongst others.

To avoid unnecessary annoyance to the public from aircraft noise, military flights mainly take place on weekdays between 9am and 3.30pm, with routine night flights only on Tuesdays and no later than 10.30pm. The civil section of the airport is open for business on weekdays between 5:30am and 11pm and at weekends between 6am and 11pm.

The aviation recession did not pass Linz airport by. On top of that came the floods in Upper and Lower Austria of 2002, which also cast a shadow over travel plans. As a result, passenger numbers over the last three years as a whole have taken a downward turn. Whereas a total of 764,904 passengers (352,331 on scheduled services and 391,145 on chartered flights) used the airport in the year 2000, the equivalent figure for the crisis year of 2001 was only 710,036 passengers (324,612 scheduled / 383,061 chartered). The next year, 2002, the numbers sank still further, to 639,914 passengers (308,763 scheduled / 329,216 chartered). The number of scheduled movements was almost unchanged in 2002 (12,923) compared with the previous year (12,927). By contrast, chartered movements fell from 3,241 in 2001 to 2,841 in 2002. Altogether there were 2.6 percent fewer flight movements. It is expected that the total number of passengers handled in 2003 will be around 640,000, with passenger numbers thus stabilising at the level of the previous year and equal proportions of scheduled and chartered passengers.

At present there is no need to extend the passenger terminal, the present terminal building having been formally commissioned as recently as 1999 after extensive modernisation. The words “Blue Danube Airport” which follow the name Linz attest to the airport's links with the city and the Danube. In 2003, under expansion stage II, the transit and restaurant areas were extended. This produced six new gates, a new VIP lounge and an expanded duty-free shop. Flughafen Linz GesmbH currently employs 163 staff of its own out of a total of 850 people who work in the airport.

“As a dynamic commercial enterprise, Flughafen Linz is generally trying to expand its capacity in line with demand from the economy,” says Marketing Manager Ingo Hagedorn. “In the medium-term, there will be some new building and renovation in the area of the cargo terminal, and also in the General Aviation area. A second engineering hangar is planned.”

Investment has also gone into the security area. “As well as the checkpoint set up last year for registered luggage, a state-of-the-art explosion isolation chamber is now available at the airport when needed,” explains Operations Director Josef Reischl. “The isolation chamber does not release any splinters, nor can any gases or vapours generated escape. Any items of baggage suspected of containing explosives are quickly taken from the danger area in this mobile explosion isolation chamber, if necessary, with the aid of an airport tow vehicle, so that the airport premises only have to be closed for a short time and evacuation can be avoided.”

The current winter flying schedule 2003/2004 for Linz airport has four hub connections: Vienna (flown by Austrian Airlines), Frankfurt (Austrian in a codeshare with Lufthansa, a connection that has existed since 1966), Amsterdam (Air Alps in a codeshare with KLM) and Zurich (Air Alps in codeshare with Swiss). Also served are the airports of Düsseldorf (Austrian in a codeshare with Lufthansa), Berne (Air Alps in a codeshare with KLM), Graz (Austrian), Innsbruck (Air Alps) and Salzburg (Austrian and Air Alps).

One destination added only recently is the German capital, Berlin, which is served by the Westphalian regional carrier, City Air, with a Saab 340. From Berlin Tempelhof, City Air offers connecting flights to Dortmund in the Ruhr area and to the airport of Münster/Osnabrück.

On the other hand, scheduled flights to the hub of Brussels, flown by Tyrolean via Salzburg, were discontinued at the end of March 2003 due to low passenger numbers. Again, the connections operated by the airline Styrian Spirit, which offered two flights a day to Frankfurt and one to Düsseldorf in its 2003 summer flight schedule, have disappeared from the latest schedule. Styrian Spirit could not hold its own against the competition from Austrian. Altogether, customers of Linz airport are currently offered 216 designations, with a maximum transfer time of two-and-a-half hours.

Marketing Manager Hagedorn explains that Linz airport's catchment area extends beyond the regions of Upper and Lower Austria (as far as St. Pölten, Krenz) to include parts of Styria, the Passau region up to Deggendorf and parts of the Czech Republic around the city of Budweis. “Upper Austria, with its provincial capital of Linz, is the fourth strongest export region in the whole of Europe. Its finances are in balance and it has the lowest unemployment rate,” he says. “A lot of economically powerful companies in the region produce a higher proportion of export goods. That means that there is a permanent demand for freight services at the airport. Moreover, the relatively good financial income of families living in the region creates a constant demand for holiday travel, which stimulates the holiday air traffic from Linz-Hörsching. And the high proportion of business travellers on routes to major economic regions, like Düsseldorf, brings the airlines a good yield.”

There are clear weaknesses in the incoming tourism business. Here there is still a need for action. Hence, according to Hagedorn, they are currently working on a wide-ranging tourism concept aimed at attracting airlines. Even so, the Danube and associated holiday offerings are a significant factor. They have also had good experiences with the CIS states, whose inhabitants are proving very fond of travel. Linz airport sees itself in competition with Salzburg airport, which is distinctly ahead on incoming business. To some extent airlines on tourist routes fly in competition with one another. For some destinations and transfer connections, Hagedorn continues, they are actually competing with Munich airport, which is about two-and-a-half hours away by car.

In the chartered area, Linz airport's winter programme 2003/2004 covers the classic holiday destinations of Egypt, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey. In the 2003 summer programme, services were also flown to the holiday destinations of Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Portugal and Cyprus. In the winter season, holiday flights are operated by, amongst others, Lauda Air (one Boeing 737-700 is based at Linz airport), Tunisair, Austrian and SunExpress.

The other chartered airline still included in the winter flight schedules, Aero Lloyd, which had an Airbus A320 stationed in Linz, has terminated its flying operations, as announced. But the Linz-based plane is to begin a service to Majorca started on 15 February, this time under the name of the successor to Lauda Air, FlyNiki. Niki Lauda personally landed the repainted jet in Linz on 9 December. Commenting on this, Hagedorn says, “As well as the classic chartered programme, we can imagine operating a city shuttle programme with FlyNiki. This could eliminate some of the longer waits in Linz airport to some extent or make sensible use of them.”

Linz airport does a lot of business on the cargo side. “After Vienna, we are the biggest cargo airport,” says Hagedorn, “Or, to look at it in a positive light, we are the Number One among the provincial airports for cargo.” Another factor in Linz airport's favour is that it is the only airport in Austria that can handle horses. Flughafen Linz GesmbH also has its own dedicated terminal, Terminal I, to handle freight. A second cargo building at the airport is leased to Frans Maas Österreich and a third, which opened in 2000, is leased to Panalpina Welttransporte GmbH, cargo partner AG, Exel (Austria).

Airport spokesman Hagedorn lays stress on the fact that it is an a business with ambitions for the future. “We are planning to expand cargo capacities still further to secure our position as Number Two in Austria.” He believes that the scheduled cargo connection to Kiev and Baku, which flies once a week with an Antonov 12, will promote a certain amount of recovery. On the other hand, the satisfaction with the airport's strong market position is somewhat dampened by the overall cargo volume figures. The general economic situation has caused a decline in this area too. Thus, for example, Amerer Air, which is based at Linz airport and flies with, amongst other aircraft, the Lockheed L-188 Electra and Fokker 27, has had to discontinue its cargo flights to Munich and Cologne/Bonn for UPS. A decline in tonnage in the KLM sub-hub (handled by Frans Maas Österreich) has also played its part in reducing the overall cargo volume at the airport by 7.4 percent, from 32,600 tonnes in 2001 to 30,189 tonnes in 2002. The proportion of total cargo volume carried by the alternative mode of transport (trucking) has risen by 91.4 percent to 98.2 percent.

On the other hand, the air freight handled by Flughafen Linz GesmbH itself in Terminal I rose in 2002 by 10.87 percent compared with the previous year, to 19,781 tonnes. Above all this was possible because the Linz sub-hub for Austria and eastern Europe founded by Swissair was continued after the airline went bankrupt by Swiss.

From page 66 of FLUG REVUE 2/2004

Last updated 10 January 2004

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