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Austrian Airlines expands flight connections to Berlin ahead of winter

Austrian Airlines announced on Friday it would launch new weekly flights to Berlin, including a Berlin-Innsbruck route.

Published: 30 September 2022 11:55 CEST
Austrian Airlines expands flight connections to Berlin ahead of winter
(Photo by JOE KLAMAR / AFP)

In the 2023 winter flight schedule, Austrian Airlines (AUA) said it would increase its offers to and from Berlin and include a new Berlin-Innsbruck route with a weekly flight.

From January 28th to February 25th, the company will fly passengers from the German capital to the Tyrolean city on Saturdays, aiming to give winter tourists more connections and travel possibilities. The airline already has routes connecting Innsbruck to Vienna, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Stockholm and Copenhagen.

READ ALSO: REVEALED: The best websites for cross-Europe train travel

In total, Lufthansa Group airlines will fly to Innsbruck up to 48 times a week during the peak ski season, the AUA parent company said in a press release.

“With this seasonal service, we are giving our flight program to Berlin an upgrade. Our winter sports-savvy passengers will enjoy the convenience of a direct connection to Tyrol.

READ ALSO: Train travel in Austria: 6 ways you can save money

“Austrian Airlines and the Lufthansa Group significantly contribute to strengthening tourist traffic in the region with almost 50 weekly flights to Innsbruck,” says Austrian Airlines CCO Michael Trestl.

The company added that the Vienna-Berlin route would also be expanded with an additional flight on Saturdays around the semester break, the company added. This will benefit not only city tourists travelling to Vienna or Berlin but also numerous transfer passengers who travel via Vienna as a convenient hub for their onward flight.

READ MORE: Five European cities you can reach from Austria in less than five hours by train

Winter routes

Austrian Airlines is not the only company offering more rules for the winter season.

The low-cost company Ryanair announced eight new routes would be included in the program of its flight scheduled from Vienna, as The Local reported.

READ ALSO: From inflation to Covid: What to expect from Austria’s winter season

The new routes are Bremen (Germany), Manchester (England), Copenhagen (Denmark), Helsinki (Finland), Genoa and Venice (Italy), Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Sibiu (Romania).

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DISCOVER AUSTRIA

Where in Austria do locals ‘hate’ tourists?

Salzburg implements a tourism concept to limit day-trippers, a restaurant owner in Carinthia bans tourists from his dining tables, and locals in Hallstatt build a wall to hinder tourists from taking selfies, blaming them for lowering the quality of life for residents in the area.

Published: 19 April 2024 12:46 CEST
Where in Austria do locals 'hate' tourists?

Austria is recognised as the world’s most overcrowded country, with more than three tourists for every permanent resident of the country.

In some parts of Austria, the high number of tourists has become a matter of concern and has created dislike among the locals.

Fences, blocked tunnels and restaurant bans 

The small-town Hallstatt of just 750 residents in Salzkammergut, sees about a million visitors per year, which is something that the locals are not always able to tolerate.

Last year, placard-waving locals blocked the tunnel into Hallstatt and also created a fence to block the views from the city, making it hard for tourists to take selfies at one of the most popular viewing spots.

Carinthia, in the south of Austria, also gained attention for tourist scepticism when a restaurant owner introduced a ‘locals only’ policy during last summer’s peak season, banning tourists from entering. He was accused of racism but defended his actions by stating that the restaurant was too busy to serve and welcome everyone.

The restaurant had also previously banned other groups of people, such as “Arabs, vegans, and hippies”, as they expressed it. During winter 2023, the restaurant announced in an Instagram story: “This is how the Peppino team is starting the new year. We would like to inform you all that our restaurant will be closed on January 16th, 2023, and will reopen on January 19th, 2023, with 6 tables reserved for our regular guests and locals”.

READ ALSO: MAP: Austria’s 12 World Heritage sites you have to visit at least once

Strategies to control tourism impact in Salzburg and Vienna

In larger cities such as Salzburg and Vienna, certain measures are being taken to control the impact of tourists.

Last July, Salzburg experienced its busiest month ever, with a record of 3.68 million hotel stays throughout the state. However, tourists are not always warmly in Mozart’s birth city, with reports of some locals openly swearing at tour guides in the street.

Salzburg wants to limit tourists from making shorter visits. The city’s head of tourism, Christine Schönhuber, says that Salzburg has no strategy for “quality tourism” and that “mass tourism” in the city is out of control. The tourism strategy until 2025 is under revision to prioritise overnight guests and ease the impact of day trippers, with suggestions including restrictions on souvenir shops, closing some streets to cars, and considering closing the bus terminal at the city’s Mirabellplatz to day-tripping companies.

The city of Vienna has also implemented certain measures to regulate the impact of the number of tourists. The city has stated its intention to promote alternative attractions and neighbourhoods, encouraging tourists to explore areas beyond the city centre.

Two tourists looking at a map of the city in front of a bookstore in Salzburg. (Photo by AFP)
 

New survey about attitudes towards tourism

Even if tourism acceptance in Austria is generally high, it has seen a decline, particularly in the most touristic regions of the country. The growing scepticism is influenced partly by concerns about labour shortages and environmental impact.

State secretary for tourism Susanne Kraus-Winkler from The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) aims to survey more than 10,000 people annually about their attitudes towards tourism.

While in tourist hotspots such as Hallstatt, local scepticism towards tourist masses is growing, elsewhere, people would like to see more visitors. Kraus-Winkler intends to improve this unbalanced tourism with an “acceptance offensive,” aiming to convince the locals of the advantages that tourism brings and to prevent frustration with tourists.

Additionally, she plans to provide regional decision-makers with a “toolbox” of solutions for addressing emerging imbalances in tourism. Moreover, a funding call is planned to support affected regions in developing concepts for their challenges. The goal is to achieve a balanced tourism in all regions. 

READ NEXT: 6 great alternatives to Austria’s overcrowded tourists hotspots

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