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Penguin rescued after being ‘kidnapped’ from Salzburg zoo

Police on Thursday said they had rescued a penguin four days after it was stolen from Salzburg's zoo.

Published: 15 October 2021 10:37 CEST

Penguin

Penguins aren't native to Austria, so a passerby was surprised to spot one on a Salzburg footpath. File photo: Jean van der Meulen/Pexels

Salzburg police were called after a passerby spotted the unusual sight of a penguin walking down a footpath in the south of the city. It turned out to be a three-month-old bird that had been stolen from the city zoo four days earlier.

When staff realized the young penguin was missing from the enclosure on Sunday, at first the zoo thought a predator had killed the animal. But “after a meticulous search by employees [for animal tracks], the penguin seemed to have disappeared without a trace,” police said.

The penguin is now safe and sound in the zoo, reunited with his parents Mhambi and Squid, and described as “hungry but unharmed”.

It’s unclear who is responsible for the theft, but the zoo are confident the penguin didn’t escape, because in that case they would have expected him to show evidence of injuries or attack, zoo spokesperson Ulrike Ulmann told Salzburger Nachrichten.

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What direct flights can I get from Austria's regional airports?

If you’re flying intercontinental in particular, there’s often no other choice than for you to fly out from Vienna or to connect through an even larger European airport – but for those who don’t live in the capital, it’s still sometimes worth checking for the connections you can get out of some of Austria’s other airports.

Salzburg, Innsbruck, Graz, Linz, and Klagenfurt all have at least a few direct flight connections.

READ ALSO: What direct intercontinental flights can I get from Vienna?

Flying out from the Alps – Salzburg

Out of the country’s non-Viennese options, Salzburg Airport by far offers the most destinations. Depending on what time of year and week you’re flying, you can access over 30 direct destinations from Salzburg.

Although many options are seasonal or only available a few times a week – or even just once a week, the UK is particularly well-connected with Salzburg flight-wise.

You can get a direct flight to a London airport every day, with both EasyJet and British Airways running direct daily flights to Gatwick Airport. Both airlines also offer connections to either Luton or Heathrow respectively, running a few times a week, while BA even operates a once-weekly flight from Salzburg to London City Airport. Ryanair also sells a direct service from Salzburg to London Stansted and WizzAir is slate to start up a three-times weekly service to Luton in early 2024.

From Salzburg to elsewhere in the UK, Jet2 offers once-weekly flights to Belfast, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Manchester, Nottingham, Leeds, and Birmingham. Meanwhile, easyJet has either once or twice-weekly connections to Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol – while Ryanair flies twice a week to Manchester.

There are numerous connections directly into and out of Salzburg without having to go through Vienna or Munich first. Photo: Pixabay / Werdepate

For Ireland, Ryanair also sends passengers from Salzburg direct to Dublin three times a week. Northern European countries also have a few direct connections to Salzburg, with daily flights to Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Rotterdam and Amsterdam – and many less frequent services to destinations like Cologne, Brussels, and the Nordic and Baltic capitals.

Southern direct destinations include both Belgrade and Skopje. Sunseekers can also use Eurowings a few times a week to get direct from Salzburg to Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza, the Canaries, Sardinia, Cyprus and even Greek destinations like Thessaloniki, Crete, Zakynthos, Corfu, Kos and Rhodes. The airline also has occasional service to Egyptian destinations.

Those travelling intercontinentally even have a few options from Salzburg, notably through a daily Turkish Airlines flight bound for Istanbul, a weekly Arkia connection to Tel Aviv, and five-times weekly flights to Riyadh on Flynas or Dubai using Flydubai.

Transatlantic travellers can even route themselves through Reykjavik on Icelandair direct from Salzburg twice a week.

Munich, Vienna, or Salzburg: Which is the best airport to fly from?

From Styria to the world through Graz

Austria’s second-largest city has nearly 20 direct flight connections.

Most of these are with destinations that are fairly close by – some easily reachable also by train – perhaps in order to connect Graz passengers with hubs able to take them to more far-flung destinations. These include daily flights to Vienna, Frankfurt, Munich, and Amsterdam on Austrian, Lufthansa and KLM – as well as four or five-times weekly flights on Eurowings to Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Berlin – and a Swiss flight to Zurich.

Travellers looking for sunnier climes also have a few options from Graz, although many only run once a week, such as Eurowings options to the Canary Islands, Corfu, Kos, Rhodes and Cyprus. There are, however, more frequent options on Eurowings to Hurghada in Egypt or Palma de Mallorca, as well as a SunExpress flight that travels direct to Antalya every day except for Wednesday.

READ ALSO: What are the new flights to and from Austrian airports in 2024?

Westward from Tyrol – Innsbruck

The Tyrolean capital has over 20 direct destinations by plane. The vast majority of these are in nearby northern European countries.

Similar to Salzburg, it has excellent connections to London – with EasyJet, BA, or Jet2 able to provide you with a way to a London airport – including Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted and Luton – every day of the week.

Other UK destinations are less well-served. But there are EasyJet or Jet2 connections a few times a week to Bristol and Manchester, and weekly Jet2 flights to Edinburgh and Birmingham.

canary islands limit property purchases foreigners

Sunny destinations like Spain’s Canary Islands are well-served from all of Austria’s airports, not just Vienna. Photo: slavikfi/Pixabay

You can also connect to hubs like Frankfurt, Vienna, and Amsterdam daily, through Paris on Air France twice a week, and once a week, you can use a direct Icelandair flight to connect onto North America through Reykjavik.

Other major European cities are also within your reach anywhere from once a week to Athens, Stockholm and Helsinki, twice a week to Berlin and Brussels, and four times a week to Hamburg.

Finally, Israir will send you to Tel Aviv once a week.

READ ALSO: What are your rights if your trip is delayed or cancelled in Austria?

The small offerings – Linz and Klagenfurt

With less than 10 direct destinations between the two of them, people living in or near the state capitals of Upper Austria and Carinthia may often just end up having to go further afield – but there are a few options.

A daily Austrian Airlines flight links Klagenfurt to Vienna, while people in the city can also use Ryanair to head to London Stansted five times a week. Less frequent options include two or three times weekly Ryanair flights to Palma de Mallorca and Alicante. Meanwhile, a once-weekly Austrian flight will take Klagenfurt passengers to Hamburg.

Linz meanwhile, has a few options for those needing either to connect to a hub or grab some sun – with daily flights to Frankfurt and twice-weekly flights to Palma de Mallorca.

READ ALSO: Do people really mistakenly fly to Austria instead of Australia?

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