Graz Airport
Encyclopedia
Graz Airport , also known as Thalerhof, serves Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. It is located in the municipalities of Feldkirchen
Feldkirchen bei Graz
Feldkirchen bei Graz is a municipality in the district of Graz-Umgebung in Styria, Austria. It is the site of the mass grave of prisoners interned, tortured and killed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the nearby concentration camp known as Talerhof, now the site of the Graz Airport....

 and Kalsdorf
Kalsdorf bei Graz
Kalsdorf bei Graz is a municipality in the district of Graz-Umgebung in Styria, Austria....

, 5 NM south of Graz city centre.

Transportation

The airport is within walking distance of Flughafen Graz-Feldkirchen railway station (about 4 minutes on foot, exit to the right of the platform), which lies on the Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

 to Spielfeld-Straß line. The travel time to the airport from Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

 main station is approximately 12 minutes by regional train.

Airport history

The construction of the airport began in 1913 with the construction of a grass runway and the first hangars; the airport saw its first flight in 1914. It was the site of the concentration camp, Talerhof
Talerhof
Talerhof was a concentration camp created by the Austro-Hungarian authorities of Franz Joseph I of Austria in the first days of World War I, in a sandy valley in foothills of the Alps, near Graz, the main city of the province of Styria....

, run by the governments of Franz Joseph I of Austria
Franz Joseph I of Austria
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

 and Karl I of Austria
Karl I of Austria
Charles I of Austria or Charles IV of Hungary was the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the last Emperor of Austria, the last King of Hungary, the last King of Bohemia and Croatia and the last King of Galicia and Lodomeria and the last monarch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine...

. The first passenger domestic flight in Austria, in 1925, serviced the route Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt
-Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...

. In 1937, the construction of a terminal building began due to increase in the number of passengers.

After the end of the Second World War, however, Austria was forbidden to possess an aviation fleet, either military or civil. After reopening of Austrian airspace in 1951, a new concrete runway of 1500 metres (4,921 ft) was built in Graz. This runway was extended to 2000 metres (6,562 ft) in 1962. The route network grew quickly and the first international scheduled flight started in 1966 with a connection to Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

. In 1969, the runway was again extended, this time to 2500 metres (8,202 ft), and construction of a new, more modern terminal building became necessary. Special highlights of the airport were the landings of the Concorde
Concorde
Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport . It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation...

 in 1981 and the Boeing 747
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...

 on the occasion of its 70th anniversary of opening in 1984. Ten years later, another new building was constructed with a capacity of maximum 750,000 passengers per year. The latest extension of the runway was to 3000 metres (9,843 ft) in 1998.

In early 21st century, the number of passengers exceeded the 750,000-mark and in 2004 is just below 900,000. This led to the final extension of the current terminal building in 2003 and the construction of a second terminal in 2005.

Airlines and destinations

External links

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