Innsbruck

Innsbruck Kranebitten (LOWI)

The airport was opened 1925 and is located on the west side of Innsbruck near the river Inn just about 3.5km away from the centre. Innsbruck became famous of his difficult west approach and was a long time one of the five most dangerous airports in the world. Since 29 February 1964, when an Bristol Brittania 312 (British Eagle Airlines) crashed into a southern mountain Glungezer (2610m), only special trained pilots are allowed to land in Innsbruck.

Also specialities in Innsbruck are the 2 LOC/DME approaches. The OEV locator from the east has a 5 degrees offset to the runway, compared to the OEJ locator from the west which is leading the aircraft north over the airport. Both instrument approaches end latest at AB (Absam NDB) where the visual part begins.

Innsbruck is the base of Austrian Arrows (former Tyrolean Airways), Tyrolean Jet Services and Welcome Air. In the year 2005 the airport handled 40.389 movements and 738.296 passengers. That’s an increase of 2.57% for movements and 1.40% for passengers compared to the year 2004.

In winter time the traffic is increasing significantly (more than 100 movements/day), mostly on Saturdays, as a result of the charter flights from Europe and Russia to the great ski region Tyrol in the middle of the Alps in Austria.