Facts & Figures
Vienna Airport is an international airport serving Vienna, the capital of Austria. It is the country’s largest airport and serves as the hub for Austrian Airlines as well as a base for low-cost carriers Ryanair and Wizz Air. The airport features a dense network of European destinations as well as long-haul flights to Asia, North America and Africa.
In 2024 Vienna Airport set a new record with 31.7 million passengers. The number of 234.138 flight movements was still slightly below the record of 266.802 from 2019. A new record was also set here with 298.000 tons of air freight in cargo aircraft.
Noise Pollution and the Community
The airport is located in Schwechat, 18 km south-east of central Vienna and 57 kilometres west of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.
Noise pollution along the approach and departure routes has increased with the rising number of flight movements. This is why citizens’ group ARGE gegen Fluglärm is trying to achieve a break in night flights of a few hours.
Citizens’ Influence
A mediation process took place at Vienna Airport between 2000 and 2005, triggered by the airport’s intention to build a third runway. One of the results of this process was the establishment of the Vienna Airport Dialogue Forum. All aviation stakeholders are represented in this forum. The airport and the airlines as the aviation side, the provinces of Vienna and Lower Austria as the superordinate regional authorities, the neighboring communities and the citizens’ initiatives as representatives of the affected communities and citizens and the Austrian air navigation service provider, as a neutral manager of flight operations that is only bound by the law. In this dialog forum, all pending problems, concerns and conflicts are discussed and negotiated. Mutually agreed solutions are implemented.
The dialogue forum publishes a detailed annual evaluation report on its website www.dialogforum.at , which contains all the important figures, data and developments of the reporting year. On the website www.flugspuren.at, which is operated by the airport, the arrivals and departures, the flight routes, the noise measuring points with the measurement results and much more can be viewed.
Governments’ Position
The federal government is responsible for enforcing the Aviation Act. As part of this, Vienna Airport has an operating license for 24 hours on all days of the year. The mediation process resulted in restrictions on these operating hours, in particular by limiting flight movements during the night core period from 23:30 to 06:30 to 4.700 per year and the closure of individual runway directions from 21:00 to 07:00, which went beyond the legal possibilities. The Federal government and the EU have approved these restrictions.
The federal government also supports the Dialogue Forum as a conflict resolution body at and around the airport and has so far taken note of and supported all decisions made by the Dialogue Forum. The Aircraft Noise Action Plan under the Environmental Noise Act, which is based on the EU’s Environmental Noise Directive, contains the following sentence that well characterizes the government’s attitude towards the Dialogue Forum: “In order to further improve the noise situation at night, the dialog forum is currently negotiating a possible ”night flight pause”, during which no regular slots would be allocated and aircraft would only be allowed to take off or land in exceptional cases. The BMK welcomes this dialog process between the stakeholders and will examine a corresponding application by Vienna Airport to change the operating times.”
Expected developments
According to all forecasts, air traffic will continue to increase in Europe. A further increase in passengers, freight and flight movements can therefore also be expected at Vienna Airport. From around 300,000 flight movements per year, this will lead to capacity bottlenecks at peak times. Vienna Airport has a final approval for the construction of a third runway, but the airport operator has not yet made a decision on its construction. This decision has been announced for mid 2026 the latest.
The aforementioned negotiations on the introduction of a night flight break will continue from the fall. Another point for negotiation is the departure procedures. It has been noted that since the recovery of air traffic after the pandemic, the departure altitudes of many aircraft are lower than before, even though they use the same departure procedure. Ways are being sought to change this, as the lower overflight altitudes lead to increased noise pollution.
Members/Friends
Member of UECNA: ARGE against aircraft noise
‘It puzzles me why I am unable to put this puzzle together correctly‘
