In March 2020, the City Airport Train had to temporarily stop running. The number of passengers has fallen to almost zero due to the fact that the first corona wave almost brought flight operations to a standstill. On March 29, 2022, the CAT train wants to celebrate its comeback.
In the meantime, the traction was rented out to the Austrian Federal Railways. For example, the CAT sets were in Vorarlberg as regional trains in use. However, only the wagon staff, but not the staff, was leased to the ÖBB. Now the trains are coming back to their main route between Vienna-Mitte (Landstrasse) and Vienna-Schwechat Airport. The first train leaves Wien Mitte at 05:37. The last train leaves the airport at 23:38 - from March 29, 2022.
"Even if the number of passengers at Vienna Airport is far from comparable to that before the pandemic, there is brisk demand again for a non-stop fast connection directly to the city center. We therefore consider it important to once again offer all domestic and international passengers a premium connection to the airport,” said CAT Managing Directors Michael Forstner and Christoph Korherr.
The Austrian climate ticket will not be valid on the City Airport Train. A spokeswoman confirmed in an interview with Aviation.Direct that this is not recognized because it has not been possible to join so far. The CAT would not meet the requirements for this, as a requirement of the Ministry of Transport is that you must at least belong to a transport association or have at least three so-called junctions on the route. In the case of the City Airport Train, it is not part of the Ostregion transport association and only serves two hubs, Vienna-Mitte (Landstraße) and Vienna-Schwechat Airport.
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