The year 2008 was a turbulent one for Austria's southernmost province. Carinthia came into the international spotlight due to the 2008 European Football Championship: Klagenfurt was a host city, and several matches took place at the Wörthersee Stadium, featuring, among others, the national teams of Germany, Croatia, and Austria. However, in the same year, the province was shaken by a tragic event: Jörg Haider, then Governor of Carinthia, was killed in a car accident, plunging the country into shock.

Recently sent images of a folder about Winter flight schedule 2007/08 The history of Klagenfurt Airport inspired this almost nostalgic retrospective – even though that time was only 18 years ago. This resulted in a report with a particular focus on what was then the last connection to Frankfurt Airport.

Month after month, year after year, and post after post, the discussions surrounding Klagenfurt Airport are repeated on social media – always revolving around almost identical demands and comments: "When will there finally be a connection to Frankfurt again?", "We need Frankfurt!", or "When will there finally be a functioning hub connection again?".

As much as one might long for a corresponding press release, it is hardly realistic at present. Instead, the focus is on the past: almost two decades have passed since the last flight departed from Klagenfurt Airport to Frankfurt Airport.

Winter flight schedule 2007/2008

The last flight to the crucial Frankfurt Airport hub took off in the 2007/2008 winter schedule. More precisely, on March 27, 2008This ended with the conclusion of the winter flight schedule. At that time, Austrian Airlines was still completely independent and operated this route with its own crew and aircraft. It was only a year later that it was taken over by Lufthansa and integrated into the group.

There were three flights a day, totaling 21 flights per week, to and from Frankfurt, coinciding with the day's most important flight times: once early in the morning, once at midday, and once in the evening. These departure times have remained largely unchanged since then, ensuring optimal connections for onward flights.

In addition to the connection to Frankfurt, there were up to 5 flights per day to Vienna on weekdays. In total, there were 31 flights per week to Vienna.

In addition to the two hubs, there were connections to Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Düsseldorf, and London. The German city destinations and their surrounding regions, in particular, remain key markets for Carinthian tourism, generating hundreds of thousands of overnight stays. Ironically, Graz Airport, with its Eurowings aircraft stationed there and regular flights to Berlin and Hamburg, offers precisely the kind of service that would benefit Klagenfurt Airport. These two cities in northern and eastern Germany, in particular, hold additional potential for inbound tourism to Carinthia. A comparison of Carinthia's overnight stay figures with those of Styria for the calendar year 2025 suggests that such flight connections – at least seasonally and several times a week – could be economically viable.

Currently, only one German destination is listed in the flight schedule: Cologne, which Eurowings will operate three times a week starting in May. At the same time, Carinthia achieves more overnight stays in every combined German region than the neighboring state of Styria – despite the lack of direct flight connections to these markets. This underscores the strong demand for Carinthia as a travel destination. On the other hand, it also reveals that Carinthian tourism has not been fully realizing its potential for years.

From 2008 to 2012, flights to Munich were used as a replacement.

An article published in "Der Standard" in 2008 reported that a connection to Munich was established as a replacement for the Frankfurt service. Previously, over 70.000 passengers were transported annually on the Frankfurt route. Comparable figures were subsequently reported for the Munich connection.

The flight connection to Munich continued for another four years until 2012. Since then, Klagenfurt has been cut off from both German hubs – Munich and Frankfurt – and these connections have not been reinstated to this day. As the report indicates, the route was then served by a 46-seat aircraft – a size that is hardly conceivable in today's airline market.

The current situation in 2026

Regional airports throughout Austria, especially Klagenfurt, Linz, and, to a lesser extent, Innsbruck, are, to put it somewhat bluntly, threatened with extinction. The outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 dealt these regional airports the final, severe blow. None of the aforementioned airports have fully recovered to this day – at least not when considering their connection to major hubs.

In 2019, up to four daily flights were offered from Klagenfurt to Vienna. These flights included the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 with 76 seats, which was permanently retired from the fleet during the COVID crisis. Since then, Austrian Airlines has not had a comparably small aircraft with which short-haul routes can be operated economically. The smallest aircraft currently in service is the Embraer 195 with over 120 seats, but this too is scheduled to be phased out in the medium term. In the future, the smallest aircraft in the Austrian Airlines fleet will be an Airbus A320neo with approximately 180 seats.

We are clearly seeing a trend of ever-larger aircraft, which means they are only being served at airports where they can be operated economically. The ones suffering most from this whole situation are, of course, the weakest links, which in this case are primarily the small regional airports.

Did that still exist back then? 52x weekly hub connections With flights to Frankfurt and Vienna combined, Klagenfurt Airport is now almost fortunate if it offers at least 11 reliable flights per week to Vienna. This represents a decline of approximately 79% compared to 2008. The outlook is also bleak, as little impetus is expected from Vienna in the foreseeable future, and every euro is currently being scrutinized in the aviation industry.

In addition, there is currently little interest from well-known airlines in the European environment in including smaller propeller aircraft in their fleets – let alone incorporating aircraft types with fewer than 120 seats.

Besides many other factors that are not discussed in detail in this article, the lack of suitable small aircraft plays a key role in why regional airports, especially in German-speaking countries, are struggling. This is why regions are currently cut off from hub airports.

Whereas once feeder flights to Vienna, Frankfurt and Munich were operated with aircraft in the 40-70 seat range, today the portfolio only includes aircraft with two or three times the number of seats.

This article was written by Andreas Knoll.