Nice to see an airport get an OK on something lately....

As reported on Friedlnews:


Vienna Airport to Build Third Landing Strip
Published: 5 minutes ago 18:31 · (FriedlNews)
Vienna International Airport is now entitled to start the construction works oft he third landing strip. The construction works will take two years.

After a proceedings of twelve years, board member Günther Ofner is happy to announce that Vienna International Airport will get a new landing strip in two years. Above all, the environment impact assess took a lot of time.

For Ofner, a third landing strip is an enormous competitive advantage for Vienna. In Europe, the capacities of airports are becoming increasingly scarce, he says. The construction costs are expected to reach about € 2.0bn.

Ofner does not think that a capital increase at Vienna International Airport is necessary. However, a capital injection would be no problems for the major shareholders, the province of Vienna and the province of Lower Austria, Ofner argues.

Nevertheless, board member Julian Jäger views the decision to be an „important step“ but no final decision yet. As a result, the final decision is expected for 2014. Construction works will not begin before 2016, he says. However, this would be sufficient to set up the new landing strip in 2020 or 2021.

This week, Vienna International Airport could announce another record in passengers. The number of passengers handled by Vienna Airport rose 7.1% year-on-year to 2,062,155 in June 2012. Flight movements and maximum take-off weight (MTOW) increased 2.2% and 0.9%, respectively, while cargo turnover declined 1.9%. The number of transfer passengers was 14.9% higher than in June 2011, and the number of local passengers rose by 3.6% during this same period.

Passenger traffic to Eastern Europe increased 17.3% in comparison with June of the previous year. The number of passengers travelling to Western Europe rose by 5.1%, and the Middle East recorded growth of 14.4% during June 2012.