Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Vienna International Airport (LOWW/VIE) is Austria's principal international gateway, situated at Schwechat in Lower Austria a short distance southeast of the capital. It is a major hub for Austrian Airlines with two long, ILS-equipped hard-surface runways, making it a natural destination for simmers flying heavy or regional traffic into central Europe.
Vienna International Airport, known locally as Flughafen Wien-Schwechat, is Austria's largest airport and serves as the hub for Austrian Airlines, a focus city for Korean Air Cargo and an operating base for Ryanair and, since April 2025, for Condor. It is owned and operated by Flughafen Wien AG and is capable of handling wide-body aircraft up to the Airbus A380. For a simulator pilot the field offers two long, fully lit runways with ILS on every direction, dense Star Alliance and low-cost traffic, and a busy approach and radar environment typical of a major European hub.
The airport lies at Schwechat in Lower Austria, about 18 kilometres southeast of central Vienna and roughly 57 kilometres west of Bratislava, Slovakia. As a major international hub it sits within controlled airspace served by its own radar and tower units.
Vienna has two physical runways. Runway 16/34 is 11,812 feet long with a hard surface, lit, and equipped with ILS on both directions. Runway 11/29 is 11,468 feet long, also hard-surfaced, lit, and equipped with ILS on both directions. Field elevation is 587 feet, at coordinates 48.1103 N, 16.5697 E.
Radio services include Wien Radar (Approach) on 134.675 MHz, ATIS on 121.73 MHz (departure ATIS) and 122.955 MHz (arrival ATIS), Wien Clearance Delivery on 122.125 MHz, Director on 119.8 MHz, Wien Ground on 121.6 MHz, an information frequency on 118.52 MHz, Vienna Ice on 131.625 MHz, and Wien Tower on 119.4 MHz. Both runways are equipped with ILS.
Vienna Airport opened in 1938 and became a civil airport in the postwar years, growing steadily as Austria's principal international gateway. On 27 December 1985 the El Al ticket counter at the airport was attacked by the Abu Nidal terrorist organisation, in a strike coordinated with a simultaneous attack at Rome's Fiumicino Airport. Flughafen Wien AG, the airport's operating company and one of the few publicly traded airport operators in Europe, was privatised in 1992, with the state of Lower Austria and the City of Vienna each retaining a 20 percent stake, an employee participation foundation holding 10 percent, and the remainder held privately. In 1998 the airport published a master plan outlining expansion through 2015, covering a new office park, railway station, cargo centre, general aviation centre, air traffic control tower, terminal and runway. The centrepiece of this expansion was a new terminal, built between 2004 and 2012 and known during construction as Skylink; costs rose sharply from an original estimate of about 401.79 million euros to as much as 929.5 million euros before cost-saving measures brought the final figure down to roughly 849.15 million euros. Construction was suspended in 2009 amid concerns over cost increases and mismanagement, prompting the resignation of chief executive Herbert Kaufman at the end of December 2010, before work resumed and the new Austrian Star Alliance Terminal (Terminal 3) opened on 5 June 2012, raising capacity to as many as 30 million passengers a year.
Vienna remains Austria's largest airport and the hub for Austrian Airlines, a focus city for Korean Air Cargo, and an operating base for Ryanair and, since April 2025, Condor. The airfield's terminal complex comprises Terminal 1, Terminal 1A, Terminal 2 and Terminal 3, connecting to five concourses; Terminal 1A reopened in a modernised form in April 2025 after renovation. The airport is capable of handling the Airbus A380, with older Concourse D upgraded to accommodate the type.
