Guide to Innsbruck - Kranebitten Airport

Often referred to as "The Heart of the Alps", the city of Innsbruck is surrounded by spectacular mountain scenery with summits towering as high as 8,000 ft. The narrow valley guarantees fascinating approaches for crews, passengers and aviation photographers alike. Most of the traffic is generated in the winter season with the majority of movements at the weekends, when dozens of airlines from Britain, Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands bring holidaymakers to Tyrol. Their Airbuses, Avroliners as well as Boeing 737's and 757's dominate the scene. In the winter season 2010/11, there were an increasing number of flights also during the week, particularly by Transavia and EasyJet. Sadly, the incoming flights from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are gradually taken over by Austrian companies like Austrian and Niki. Sibir with its colourful A319's and A320's is still operating to INN in the winter season of 2011/12, so is Aeroflot, and there is always a fair share of more exotic visitors from Eastern countries in January around the Orthodox Christmas holidays. Make sure to check out the timetables for 2 January and the following days until 10 January. Do not expect too many Russian built types though: the Yak 40's and 42's have become pretty rare due to more stringent noise regulations at the airport. Check out Hawkeye's Spotters Forum (including a news ticker) for details and information at short notice. Among the most frequent airlines are British Airways, Thomas Cook, Monarch, EasyJet, FlyBE, Thomsonfly, Finnair, Jet Time, SAS, SAS Norge, Atlantic Airways, Malmoe Aviation, Transavia and Air Berlin. What makes spotting so attractive at INN among other reasons: some of these companies send most of the types in their fleets to Tyrol on a single day, particularly Saturdays!
In summer, the majority of flights are outgoing charters to Mediterranean holiday destinations operated by Austrian/Austrian arrows, Niki, Sun Express, Travel Service and Air Malta with fewer incoming flights from Britain or Scandinavia (EasyJet, Thomsonfly, Monarch, FlyBE, Finnair). Checking the website of Innsbruck Airport is worthwhile before planning a spotting trip.
Scheduled operations concentrate on feeder services to the Star Alliance hubs of Vienna and Frankfurt, but Austrian Arrows and Austrian also operate numerous IT-flights. All their Boeing 737's, Airbuses, Fokker 70's and 100's and Dash 400's can easily be spotted at Innsbruck - and with breathtaking backdrops too! While INN sadly lost its low-cost services to Vienna after the demise of SkyEurope and the pull-out by Niki, the latter's Embraer 190 jets can at least be spotted on charter flights both in winter and summer.
The number of bizjets at INN keeps increasing, notably also BBJ's and aircraft in the Global Express and Gulfstrem 5 class as well as the occasional Falcon F7X, and their sleek contours stand out beautifully in front of the snow-capped mountains. During the Orthodox Christmas holidays in the first two weeks of January, the odd Tupolev 204 may join the scene. Welcome Air's yellow and pink Dornier 328 aircraft add another touch of colour, and so do the air ambulance aircraft and helicopters, which are particularly active during the winter season when broken legs are the order of the day.
The airport has one runway (08/26) and two main taxiways (A/B), all visible from the windows of the self-service restaurant, but less so from the terrace of the terminal building, which used to be a great spotting location, but sadly is no longer: see below for details.

The airport is served by bus line F, which runs from the railway station and the city centre every 15 mins (30 mins on Sundays) and takes about 15 mins, single fare: EUR 1.80 (ticket machine), EUR 1.90 (driver); car park fee at the airport: EUR 1.70 per hour; the first half hour is free of charge.

Please Note: Air band receivers are not allowed in Austria.