New Year's Press Talk
2019 – a special year with 5 weeks without flight operation / Solid air traffic results despite refurbishment of the runway / Eurowings choses Salzburg as its second Austrian base/ Varied flight program for summer 2020 / Total investment volume of 6.8 million Euro for 2020
Thousands of foreign guests are currently visiting the winter sport regions in Salzburg. The tourism industry is very pleased with the occupancy.
„We can be very content with the start of this year´s winter season. The situation at the airport is quite relaxed and our teams are ideally prepared for the coming peak days. Winter season with its enormous increase in passenger volume always is challenging for our staff, equipment and infrastructure. What counts in the end is friendliness towards our passengers, flexibility of procedures and a close cooperation with airlines and tour operators”, says Bettina Ganghofer, CEO of Salzburg Airport.
Just like in the past years, especially tourists from the Scandinavian countries, Great Britain and Russia fly to Salzburg to spend their winter holidays in one of the many skiing resorts in the region of Salzburg. By the way: this year, we expect February 15th to be our peak day for arivals (114 landing aircrafts) and February 22nd for departures (114 departures). Many British guests spend their half-term-holidays in Salzburg.
2019: A Review on a Special Year
„If the weather is kind, anyone can do it“, was the motto of the team refurbishing the runway. From April 24th2019 you could watch construction workers and machines on the almost 60-year-old runway instead of aircrafts landing or taking off. During the following five weeks the old runway was shattered, refilled using 120.000 tons of asphalt and equipped with modern LED lighting. After completing the general renovation, an Airbus from Eurowings coming from Stuttgart, was the first aircraft to land on the new runway. Right after re-opening the airport, two
new destinations from Salzburg could be offered: one to Nis in Serbia and the other to Tel Aviv in Israel. Then Lufthansa and Eurowings announced that they were planning to postion themselves anew in Salzburg. Lufthansa took over the Frankfurt route from Austrian Airlines in December, which means more seating capacity for Salzburg on this route. Lufthansa operates services with an Airbus instead of the Embraer, which Austrian Airlines had used.
“Of course we notice that the airport has been closed for five weeks, when we look at the business figures”, says Bettina Ganghofer. “No flight operations for five weeks, no passengers and shops that had to close. We had to do without 135.000 passengers during this period of time, which means a decrease in revenues by 4 million euros”.
With a decrease in passenger numbers by no more than 6.9%, Salzburg Airport has been able to compensate the closure of the airport quite well. In absolute numbers, this represents a total of 1.717.991 passengers. As far as cargo is concerned, our focus was to better use the available scheduled and charter flights for transporting cargo. The future of airfreight in Salzburg concentrates on value-added-services such as collection services, labelling, packaging, DGR-check and screening. On launching a new product, the issue CO2-reduction played an essential role – the daily truck from Salzburg to Vienna. By centrally consolidating all partners, it was possible to reduce truck journeys and thereby reduce 126 tons of carbon dioxide per year. The cargo sector of all Austrian airports is currently in a process of consolidation with freight numbers stagnating or decreasing.
Fact Sheet 2019
| Passengers | 1.717.991 (-6.9%) |
| MTOW Maximum Take Off Weight | 500.737 (-5.5%) |
| Passengers scheduled traffic | 1.334.536 (-8.7%) |
| Passengers touristic traffic | 378.698 (-0.5%) |
| Cargo (kg) | 9.048.079 (-18.6%) |
Importance for Economy, Industry and Tourism
Did you know that nearly 1.500 people work at Austria´s largest regional airport, almost 400 of these at the corporate group? Today it is essential for big companies to be globally mobile. Many companies have international establishments or maintain business relations with partners abroad. Holidaymakers not only want to spend their vacation in the beautiful mountains of the Salzburger Land, many of them want to go on a long-distance trip. Salzburg Airport and its many partners meet these requirements and connect people and continents by offering good flight connections. Whenever there is no direct flight available from Salzburg, there are a number of hubs allowing passengers to discover the world.
“In order to stay competitive today, you need to be mobile. Therefore globally active companies need an airport and good flight connections right at their front door. Especially international hubs like Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne, Istanbul and – in the future- Helsinki are vital! Many companies like Hofer/Aldi Süd settle near the airport and these are exactly the companies we need here in Salzburg”, says Deptuy Governor Christian Stöckl.
Salzburg Airport as Investor in the Region: 6.8 Million Euros
All airports need to meet the needs of passengers and international guests, which includes a great number of business clients. Therefore, we invest in essential procedures and acquisitions. After a quite cost-intensive year 2019, it is important to make investments only, if there are no other options.
“The biggest part of the investments in 2020 will be 2.3 million euros for purchasing new vehicles and equipment. About 2.4 million euros will be needed for infrastructural measures and various smaller projects. The rest of the investment volume is divided as follows: IT hardware and software (€ 736.000), environmental measures in the cargo building (€ 480:000), implementation of bag-drop-services (€ 440.000) and the replacement of outdated technology (conversion to LED lighting) and so on”, says Deputy Governor Christian Stöckl.
Summer Flight Program
Passengers departing from Salzburg may look forward to a well-balanced summer flight schedule. They can easily reach destinations worldwide via international hubs like Frankfurt, London Gatwick, Düsseldorf or Helsinki. Of course we must not forget to mention Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin. From summer 2020, Eurowings will base a total of 3 aircrafts in Salzburg, which allows Salzburg to gain importance in the network of the Lufthansa-subsidiary.
Summer Destinations 2020 in a Nutshell:
Egypt (Hurghada, Mars Alam), Bulgaria (Burgas), Greece (Karpathos, Corfu, Kos, Creta, Rhodes), Italy (Lamezia Terme, Olbia), Spain (Palma de Mallorca), Turkey (Antalya), France (Calvi), Serbia (Nis) and Israel (Tel Aviv).
