With the start of the 2024 summer flight schedule period, Austrian Airlines is significantly improving the connection between Klagenfurt Airport and the Vienna hub. An ATR72-600 from Braathens, which is being wet leased, will be stationed in Carinthia.
In the 2024 summer flight schedule, two turboprop aircraft from the Swedish provider will fly on behalf of Austrian Airlines. These will not receive any branding from the client. One of the two machines will be in Kosice at night and the other in Klagenfurt. More details on this in this article at Aviation.Direct.
In Carinthia, the Chamber of Commerce and politicians complained again and again that Austrian Airlines had massively worsened the connection to the Vienna hub due to the elimination of the previously practiced night stops. This is important because it is the last remaining hub connection. Only Linz Airport will be in an even worse position in the future, because with Air Dolomiti discontinuing its Frankfurt flights, it is not connected to any hub at all - at least for the time being - and the only regular scheduled flights in the summer are two weekly Düsseldorf routes from Skyalps. In the charter segment, the Upper Austrian airport is doing significantly better than Klagenfurt, because there are one or two new routes in Linz this year.
“With the improved flight times and the expansion of services to the Star Alliance Hub Vienna, more than 80 destinations can now be reached in Vienna with short connection times of a maximum of three hours. For Klagenfurt Airport, this new flight schedule means that 2024 weekly connections to the Vienna hub will be offered again from April 13,” said Klagenfurt Airport Director Maximilian Wildt.
With the departure at 05:45 a.m. in Klagenfurt and the arrival at 06:35 a.m. in Vienna, all departures from 25:07 a.m. can be reached with a transfer time of 00 minutes and thus almost the entire Austrian Airlines route network. The important North American connections (e.g. New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Montreal and Toronto) with morning departures from Vienna are now accessible again. The late return flight at 22:35 p.m. from Vienna means that global travelers can reach Klagenfurt with only a short stay. In addition, day trips to Vienna and many European cities are now possible again. The afternoon flight, which is particularly popular with incoming tourism traffic, will be retained and will now be offered daily.
The Klagenfurt flight schedule from April 2024 at a glance:
| Flight number | Route | departure | Arrivals | Flight days | ||||||
| OS944 | Klagenfurt-Vienna | 05:45 | 06:35 | MO | DI | MI | DO | FR | SA | |
| OS940 | Klagenfurt-Vienna | 15:10 | 16:00 | MO | DI | MI | DO | FR | SA | SO |
| OS939 | Vienna-Klagenfurt | 13:05 | 14:00 | MO | DI | MI | DO | FR | SA | SO |
| OS943 | Vienna-Klagenfurt | 22:35 | 23:25 | MO | DI | MI | DO | FR | SO | |
and 