“Europe must proceed uniformly”, demands Vienna's airport board member Günther Ofner and names the CommonPass app as an essential element, in which tests and vaccinations can be entered and read out.

The manager also told Österreichischer Rundfunk that he was of the opinion that this application would "make travel much easier". However, it is also essential that Europe takes a uniform approach “in order to overcome the crisis as quickly as possible”.

The airport, managed by Ofner together with his co-director Julian Jäger, is the largest in Austria and was also hit hard by the crisis. Without the short-time work, you might have had to lay off many employees. “We are very grateful that there is above all the possibility of short-time work. This support from the state has so far enabled us to refrain from layoffs. Our goal is to keep as many of our employees as possible for the hopefully coming upswing in the company. But for this we need an extension and continuation of the short-time working ”, says Ofner.

While the passenger business collapsed in the previous year and then rapidly declined again after a brief upturn, the freight business remained constant. More details on the monthly development of the flight and passenger volume in Austria under this link. The transport of goods by air remained stable and was of particular importance in the previous year, as Günther Ofner emphasizes to the ORF:

“Without the air freight, the supply in Austria would have collapsed. The medical supplies, the masks, the protective equipment - all of this came into the country by plane. The industry would not have been able to continue working without a functioning logistics chain. I believe that the crisis clearly underscored the importance of air freight ”.