Did you know Vienna Airport began as a wartime airfield and became Austria’s first privately managed airport?

Vienna Airport did not start life as a civilian gateway. According to the airport’s own 70-year history, the Schwechat site opened in 1938 as a military airfield of the German Luftwaffe and, after the Second World War, was taken over by British occupation forces and run as RAF Schwechat.

The first civilian aircraft, a British European Airways Dakota, landed on 2 September 1946. The operating company was founded on 11 December 1953 and operations began in January 1954, making Vienna Austria’s first privately managed airport. In that first full year it handled 64,211 passengers carried by eight airlines.

Growth followed quickly. Austrian Airlines flew its first scheduled service, to London, on 31 March 1958, a new terminal opened in 1960 and passenger numbers passed one million in 1966. A second runway entered service in October 1977, the City Airport Train began running to the city centre in 2003, a 109-metre control tower opened in 2005 and Terminal 3 followed in June 2012. The airport’s record year remains 2019, with 31.7 million passengers.

For travellers, that layered history explains why Vienna’s terminals and piers date from different decades. The airport says a southern extension of Terminal 3 is scheduled for 2027, so anyone flying through Vienna in the coming years should check the airport’s own pages for the current terminal and gate layout before they travel.