Vienna Airport Wien-Schwechat. Vienna International Airport Schwechat Transfer in Vienna 1 hour 20 minutes

Vienna International Airport (Flughafen Wien) is one of the largest hubs in Europe, how to avoid getting lost, get to Vienna, fly back and much more.

Vienna Airport - passport control.

A foreign airport, and even more so in a foreign country, with a language barrier is always stressful. At first it seems like a completely incomprehensible labyrinth of corridors, passages and dead ends. But when you visit it more than once, you begin to understand that it is not that big, everything is clear and understandable, there are many interesting places. The meeting with Vienna Airport begins with the farewell words of the flight attendant and your step from the plane onto the ramp. You should not experiment with finding new paths; the simplest thing is to succumb to the herd instinct and go where all the passengers on your flight are going. And they follow the exit and baggage claim signs.

Vienna International Airport (Flughafen Wien) - Schwechat is one of the largest hubs in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2015, it carried more than 22.7 million passengers, serving 226.8 thousand flights. Austrian Airlines is based there.
Schwechat is located 19 km from the center of Vienna to the southeast, next to the A4 motorway.
Airport code: IATA: VIE, ICAO: LOWW. Address: 1300 Wien-Flughafen, Schwechat, Austria

The first hall you will all go to will be the passport control hall. At Vienna Airport, a wide corridor is allocated for passport control, in which border guard booths stand diagonally. Look carefully, you need to choose a line with a sign “All Passports” - for those who do not have a passport from one of the Schengen countries (for holders of these passports there are separate booths where they may let you through, but they may also turn you away). Since the booths are located diagonally, the queues to them have different lengths.
Sometimes the one closest to you, despite the fact that it seems to be the longest, has fewer people than the others. And sometimes in the distant ones there is less because people simply didn’t get there.

Vienna Airport - baggage claim.

After passing through passport control, we proceed to the baggage claim area. Right at the entrance there is a mobile stand in the shape of a green suitcase on wheels with a flag. These are tickets for the high-speed train to Vienna - City Airport Train (CAT), which will be discussed further.

Flughafen Wien - Vienna Airport Schwechat - baggage claim hall

There are many conveyor belts in the hall, an office for lost luggage, the search for which can even be made in a special machine, and also many machines selling CAT tickets. Look at the display at the belts; information will be displayed there on which conveyor you need to wait for your luggage.
While you are waiting for your luggage, turn on Wi-Fi on your mobile or tablet. In Schwechat it is free, with excellent connection quality, which allows you to make calls via the Internet and inform your family at home that everything is in order, saving money on roaming.

As you exit the baggage claim area, you enter the arrivals hall at Vienna Airport. Everyone who greets them stands and waits for those who have arrived behind the fence. At the same time, a large arrivals board is shown on the wall opposite them.
You can look at the detailed one, which indicates everything you might need.

How to get to Vienna from the airport

There are many ways to get to Vienna from the airport. Taxi, bus, train, high-speed train. We will stay on the high-speed train - CAT. Although it’s difficult to call it an electric train in the sense of the Moscow Aeroexpress.

For those who need a taxi or a bus, go around the barrier with those greeting you and go to the exit. Go out into the street and see a line of taxi cars. Buses stop on the next line.
We decided to use CAT and immediately after leaving the baggage claim hall we turned right.

It’s difficult to get lost, everything is in line of sight, there are plenty of signs everywhere. There is a descent to the trains, elevators are also nearby.

Before the descent, the beautifully decorated green CAT office glows. And immediately behind it is the glowing red office of the OBB - the railways - for those who are not going to Vienna, but further.

Vienna Airport - City Airport Train (CAT)

Why CAT? Taxis are quite expensive; with a bus, you don’t want to deal with the lines and travel for a long time along possibly congested roads. There is also a simple train - an electric train, very cheap - 3.90 €, but the train platform under the airport leads not only to Vienna, but also to other directions and you have to deal with the schedule, look for the right direction in order to board the right train - without knowing German at all does not seduce. Therefore, CAT, just 16 minutes and you are almost in the center of Vienna. It is not cheap, 12€ one way, but for 19€ a round trip ticket is valid for 30 days. The fare has recently increased in price; previously it was 11€ one way and 17€ round trip. They also have inflation. Not cheap, but it's worth it. By the way. Children under 14 years of age and people in wheelchairs have free travel.

A ticket for CAT can be bought almost anywhere in the airport, and at the “suitcase” counter at the entrance to the baggage claim hall (we bought it there, the girl accepted a credit card without any problems and issued tickets, and she was Russian-speaking!), or from the machines in the hall baggage claim can be done at the CAT office, on the descent to the platform. It's difficult to stay without tickets. But you need to buy them; there are controllers on the train that go through the entire train on every trip and validate the ticket.

Having walked along the descent we find ourselves in a small hall, where again there are ticket machines and a departure board. Trains run every 30 minutes to Vienna at 09 and 39 minutes of every hour (from 6:09 to 23:39), from Vienna at 06 and 36 minutes of every hour (from 05:36 to 23:06).
We go forward and go down. For those with large luggage, it is easier to take the elevator directly from the arrivals hall level. The elevator is located behind the descent.
Do not delay boarding, if you board right before departure - there may not be enough seats and you will have to stand or sit on the steps.

The trains are stylized according to the CAT symbols, two-story, comfortable.
Inside, on each floor, there is a row of double chairs on one side, and single ones on the other. The row with single chairs has a 230 V socket and a USB for each chair. What will be useful after the flight. The trip actually lasts only 16 minutes.

Vienna Airport - Wien Mitte

The CAT does not arrive at Vienna's main station, but at Wien Mitte station with a connection to the LandstraBe metro (Orange Line U3), two stops from the very center and Stephansplaz station.
Upon arrival, stairs and an escalator lead to the top from the platform. The escalator only works uphill. Therefore, for those who are leaving for the airport or have a lot of luggage, it is better to use the elevator, which is located right there.

Once you get up, you find yourself in the CAT hall in the shopping center. There are also check-in counters for those departing, an information desk, as well as ticket machines.

This is what the CAT exit in the Wien Mitte shopping center looks like. There are just shops next door. Exiting the CAT doors and turning left, you will come to the main entrance of Vien Miette where the shopping center houses a two-story SPAR hypermarket, a SPAR Express minimarket, on the second floor where an escalator leads - a food court with a bunch of fast food cafes, incl. McDonald's, H&M clothing stores, etc.. on the third floor of Media Markt and so on. For those who need to buy food with them, or eat, or buy clothes or equipment - everything can be found here.

When you go outside from the main entrance, you will find yourself in a small covered area where ticket machines and the entrance to the metro are located. The central square, Stefan Platz, can also be reached on foot. From the exit to the right and in a straight line about 1 km - 20 minutes at a leisurely pace.

Vienna Airport - departure area

The departure area is located on the second floor of Vienna Airport. After checking in for your flight and checking in your luggage, you need to follow the signs to your gate. All our flights from Vienna, both to Europe and to Russia, took place from gate F.
We approach the turnstiles, apply the barcode of the boarding pass and go through the opened doors. We find ourselves in the inspection room. We approach the tail of the queue and while we are standing in it, we take off and hide our watches in our pockets, take out laptops, iPads and tubes of creams, even if they are less than 100 ml. We put things in special boxes and go for inspection. Not often, but they can also get caught they will even demand that you throw away your lighters if there are more than 2 of them per person.After passing the security check, we go out to the Duty-free store area.

Lifehack:
Very often, if I use a city as a transfer hub, and my luggage flies separately and immediately to the final destination, I stay “light,” i.e. without things that need to be checked in as luggage. Their list includes aftershave lotion and cologne. So, in order to have a pleasant smell, in the Duty-free perfume area I like to spray expensive cologne from a test bottle, not only on my wrist, but also discreetly on my chin and face.

Having passed through the Duty-free zone we find ourselves in a long terminal. Although there are travelators, you can walk along them for a very long time. And if you have the last gate, you should hurry. All amenities are provided for passengers awaiting their flight. This includes a souvenir shop, a cafe and water dispensers.

The waiting area is not only rows of standard chairs, but also such interesting sun loungers. And places where you can sit with your laptop and charge it from the chargers built into the tabletop.
And even smokers here are not treated with the same savagery as in Russia. Whatever people smoke in toilets, let them use a smoking room with good ventilation and not disturb anyone.

Vienna Airport left a very pleasant impression; waiting for your flight here is quite comfortable.

When my husband and I first flew from Rostov-on-Don to Leipzig, we ourselves looked for reviews from tourists about the transfer at Vienna Airport, because we were very worried.
Many questions arose: will we be able to board the connecting plane in time, are the distances long, how long will it take to get to the required gate, how long will it all take, how to find out the departure window, etc. Then we flew to Prague and Venice, also with a transfer in Vienna. It turned out that it’s not scary at all!

Vienna Airport enough small and compact, unlike Frankfurt! Half an hour quite enough to walk to the desired gate of the next plane. Sometimes we flew straight to the arm, and sometimes we brought the shuttle to the plane's ramp. Once at Vienna airport, we immediately looked for a board with information about the connecting flight: gate number, whether there was a delay, etc. Then we followed the crowd to passport control. Unlike Moscow airports, luggage is not issued on connecting flights in Vienna. This is very comfortable. We immediately took everything we needed into our hand luggage, and received our luggage at the place of arrival.

At Vienna airport many escalators and moving walks, which makes traveling with children and the elderly much easier.

When we were choosing tickets to Prague, the search service suggested connecting flights with an interval of half an hour or at 3 o'clock. We were very worried that we wouldn’t make it in half an hour. After all, we didn’t know Vienna airport well; We were worried: “what if the plane from Rostov was a little delayed,” we had children with us, etc.

Tickets were purchased with a connection interval of 3 hours. The lounge at Vienna Airport is quite comfortable. Travelers are offered soft sofas and hard chairs, armchairs with tables for laptops, sockets for recharging, internet, smoking cabins, cafes, shops, toilets... My son really liked that everyone was lying on the sofas with their shoes on!

We walked around the area adjacent to the airport, saw a multi-level parking lot for cars, many taxis, regular buses, electric trains, and the Aeroexpress Cat.
The time spent waiting for the next flight passed quickly, but still, as it turned out later, it was possible feel free to buy tickets with a connection of half an hour and walk not around the adjacent territory of the airport, but around Prague!

When we flew next time from Rostov and we already had a short connection in Vienna in half an hour, and for technical reasons our plane (from Rostov) was slightly delayed, then when registering in Rostov we were offered for free "rebook" connecting flight tickets in Vienna 3 hours later!!! After this incident, we realized that we should not worry about the short time between connections. If there are any problems then airline employees themselves will offer opportunities to fly to your destination by accessible means. True, for connecting flights we chose only one airline- Austrian Airlines.

Throw away all your worries about “I won’t be able to make it in time,” and choose tickets as convenient for you! If the search service offers such air tickets, then this is quite feasible. But always be prepared for possible changes, because an airplane is still a piece of equipment that sometimes breaks down!

On one of our subsequent trips, returning from Rome to Rostov-on-Don, we decided during docking Just take a walk around Vienna. To do this, we chose a flight with a convenient arrival time in Vienna at 16:30. We went through passport control, took the train to the city, checked into a hotel... It was already about 6 p.m. Hotel we chose budget, but in the very center of Vienna and with breakfast. Our plane to Rostov took off at 9:50 am the next day. There were different ticket options, and we specifically chose this one a long connection to spend the evening in Vienna.

It's so great to spend a night in Vienna! The airline does not issue luggage on connecting flights; we were light. Shops were still open and you could do a little shopping (but this would be hand luggage!).

We just walked and enjoyed Vienna! Before 8 pm there were a lot of people on the streets of Vienna. People walked and rode bicycles.

This was at the beginning of October. It got dark early, you could feel the invigorating coolness... A walk through evening Vienna is unforgettable!

The whole city is in lights, illumination, various light projections! Majestic buildings of palaces, temples, theaters, town halls... Just great!

So, if suddenly for some reason you have to carry out long time when connecting in Vienna- don't despair, but take advantage of the opportunity!

Electric trains and Aeroexpress connecting the airport and Vienna railway stations run very frequently.

Vienna Airport Schwechat has a convenient, well-thought-out layout and attractive appearance. This international airport supports the work of more than one hundred airlines from around the world. Domestic airlines fly to Vienna airport: Ural Airlines, Russia, and Aeroflot.

Schwechat airport terminals

Vienna Airport Schwechat is served by three terminals: the first and second terminals are the main ones, and the terminal 1(A) is used as a temporary terminal. Each of these terminals operates for a specific direction of flights with aircraft of any class.

Terminal 1 serves Star Alliance and Austrian Airlines (and their partners), as well as Emirates.
Terminal 2 serves Air France, Iberia, as well as British Airways, Qatar Airways, SkyEurope, etc.
Terminal 1A serves Niki, Air Berlin, Germanwings and other low-cost airlines.

The flow of passengers departing and arriving at Vienna Airport is conveniently divided: arriving passengers are received on the first floor, and departing passengers are seen off on the second floor. After the commissioning of the modern SKYLINK terminal, Vienna Airport began to receive eighteen and a half million passengers annually (this amounts to about fifty and a half thousand people daily). In the next article we will describe in detail and indicate all possible methods.

Vienna Airport Schwechat online scoreboard

Schwechat airport map

Vienna airport well thought out and well planned, so it is very convenient to use. A special map that shows all the facilities available at the airport makes it easier to navigate the territory of Vienna Airport.

Service at Vienna Airport Schwechat

There is free Wi-Fi throughout Vienna Airport, which is extremely convenient for passengers. Vienna Airport provides a high level of comfort for passengers waiting for their flight, as elsewhere: there are plenty of power outlets and soft leather sofas. To allow passengers to work on a computer, the airport has comfortable chairs with tables and nearby electrical outlets.

Passengers can eat at Vienna airport in the departure area, as well as before going through various types of control. There are 24-hour Café+Co Bar, McDonald's and other catering outlets.
Passengers wishing to taste Austrian cuisine have the opportunity to visit the Brahms& Liszt, Demel, Café Melange or Johann Straus cafés, located next to the boarding gates. The Market Place is located in the registration area. The airport also has cafes located in the common area and in parking lots, a first aid station, a pharmacy and grocery stores.
ATMs are located in the parking lots, near the gates, in the arrivals area, and also in the main hall. They allow you to withdraw money (euro) from cards of a suitable format (MasterCard or Visa) issued by Russian banks. There are also banks and exchange offices at the airport that accept rubles, but it is better to purchase euros in advance.
DutyFree at Vienna Airport is quite large: almost all points are open from 5 or 6 am to 9 or 10 pm. Tax free for purchases made in these stores will not be refunded to you, since they are already duty free.
Use luggage storage services in Vienna airport you can do it for three or seven euros per day (the price depends on the size of your luggage).
For passengers willing to pay extra for the opportunity to relax in more comfortable conditions, Vienna Airport offers one of ten business lounges. The most popular of them are the Air Lounge, SKY Lounge and Jet Lounge. All these lounges are located in the departure area. The cost is about thirty euros per passenger. Business lounges are open from half past six in the morning until ten in the evening. The remaining lounges are located in the non-Schengen and Schengen departure areas and are available to those passengers who fly business or first class or have other privileges.

If desired, passengers can book a tour of the Vienna Airport complex. On this excursion they will be able to see how it works. The duration of such an excursion is about ten euros for adults and about six for children.

Parking lots and parking at Vienna Airport.

If you need to leave your car for one hour, you will have to pay 3.7 euros for this when using parking C and 4.5 euros when using any other parking lot. Three hours will cost 8.6 euros when using parking lot C, 10.3 euros when using parking lots Deck 3 or 4, 13.5 euros when using parking lots located in zones K3 and K1. To leave your car in parking lot C for the whole day, you will have to pay 24.7 euros, and in other parking lots - about thirty-seven euros. The cost of weekly parking in zone C will be about one hundred euros, in zone Deck 3 or 4 - one hundred and seventy euros.

​Vienna-Schwechat Airport is located 18 kilometers southeast of the center of the Austrian capital; it received its name from the town of Schwechat of the same name, next to which it is located. The number of runways at the airport is 2.

This airport is the main air gateway to Austria, but is not one of the largest, so traveling through it to other countries is quite convenient and pleasant: Schwechat is well planned, the navigation system at the airport is excellent (it feels like even a child can navigate it), wonderful transport links with Vienna. Travel time from the airport to the city center is from 16 to 25 minutes, depending on what transport you use.

Directly from Vienna Airport you can also go by bus to Prague and Brno (Czech Republic), Bratislava and Kosice (Slovakia), Budapest (Hungary).

If you are flying via Schwechat to other countries, transferring at Vienna Airport is also convenient because there is actually one central passenger terminal, divided into zones. B&C, F serve intra-Schengen flights, D And G– non-Schengen.

Taking into account the characteristics of this airport, a connection to Schwechat from 1 hour can be considered comfortable. Longer connections at Vienna Airport are also not difficult due to the abundance of places where you can happily pass the time and relax.

Vienna Airport diagram

Vienna Airport photo

Main hall of the airport, arrivals area, transitions to other areas

Navigation is very clear and convenient

Electronic displays in the main hall of Schwechat Airport showing train and bus departure times from the airport, bus company and train type.

Descent to the train station at Vienna Airport

The CAT (City Airport Train) is the fastest way to get to the center of Vienna.

Information, currency exchange - everything is compact, convenient and clear

Baggage claim areas

Security check area at the entrance to terminals F and G

In the terminals themselves, the board indicates the travel time to the boarding gate you need (0-5 minutes, 5-10 minutes, etc.), free Wi-Fi in all areas, including restaurants, comfortable work areas where you can sit with computer, as well as sofas with headrests, on which you can sleep.

Shopping at Vienna Airport

Schwechat has approximately 80 shops (including Billa and Spar supermarkets) and 23 restaurants covering an area of ​​19,000 m2. meters. Among the brands presented at the airport, premium brands predominate.

Where to stay at Vienna Airport

At Vienna Schwechat Airport there is a four-star business hotel NH Vienna Austria with 500 rooms (standard/business/superior).