St. Gallen–Altenrhein Airport, french: Aéroport de St. Gallen-Altenrhein, it, Aeroporto di San Gallo-Altenrhein is a small

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

Altenrhein Thal is a village and municipality in the ''Wahlkreis'' (constituency) of Rorschach in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Besides the village of Thal itself, the municipality also includes the villages of Altenrhein, Buechen, Buriet and St ...

in the Canton of St. Gallen,

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, near

Lake Constance Lake Constance (german: Bodensee, ) refers to three Body of water, bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, ca ...

. It is the home base for

People's People's, branded as ''People's Viennaline'' until May 2018, and legally ''Altenrhein Luftfahrt GmbH'', is an Austrian airline headquartered in Vienna. It operates scheduled and charter passenger flights mainly from its base at St. Gallen-Altenr ...

airline.

History

At the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Swiss authorities identified existing locations that were to be modernized as regional airports, a second tier of infrastructure to support the primary urban airports, with St. Gallen-Altenrhein being one of the five.

Austrian Airlines Austrian Airlines AG, often shortened to Austrian, is the flag carrier of Austria and a subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group. The airline is headquartered on the grounds of Vienna International Airport in Schwechat where it also maintains its hub ...

served St. Gallen-Altenrhein from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

since 2003 when it took over the route from Rheintalflug, a predecessor of

InterSky InterSky, legally ''Intersky Luftfahrt GmbH'', was an Austrian airline headquartered in Bregenz, which operated scheduled services from its base at Friedrichshafen Airport, Germany, to major cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well a ...

. The airport decided to terminate the contracts with Austrian in 2011 and started their own airline,

(formerly ''People's Viennaline''), to serve the route. Austrian decided to continue the route as well in direct competition. As a result, there were up to six daily flights from the small airport to Vienna during that period. In spring 2013, Austrian announced the termination of its route to Vienna due to continuing losses as a result of the harsh competition. After that, People's offered a codeshare agreement to Austrian, which it declined.

Facilities

Terminal

The airport features a small passenger terminal building and some apron and hangar stands for aircraft such as the Embraer 170, business jets or general aviation planes such as the

Cessna 172 The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is an American four-seat, single-engine, high wing, fixed-wing aircraft made by the Cessna Aircraft Company.

. As there are no jet bridges, walk-boarding is used.

Runway

The paved, eastbound runway ''10'' is equipped with an Instrument landing system (ILS CAT I). Due to its short length the main runway can only be used by smaller passenger aircraft such as the

Embraer E-Jets The Embraer E-Jet family is a series of four-abreast narrow-body short- to medium-range twin-engine jet airliners designed and produced by the Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer. The E-Jet was designed as a complement to the preceding E ...

or the

Bombardier Q Series The De Havilland Canada DHC-8, commonly known as the Dash 8, is a series of turboprop-powered regional airliners, introduced by de Havilland Canada (DHC) in 1984. DHC was later bought by Boeing in 1988, then by Bombardier in 1992; then by ...

Airlines and destinations

The following airline offers regularly scheduled and seasonal flights at St. Gallen–Altenrhein Airport: The nearest larger airport is

Friedrichshafen Airport Friedrichshafen Airport (german: link=no, Flughafen Friedrichshafen, ; also known as ''Bodensee Airport Friedrichshafen'') is a minor international airport 1.9 miles (3 km) north of Friedrichshafen, Germany, on the banks of Lake Constance ( ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, on the opposite side of Lake Constance, to the north-west by car or by

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

Statistics

Ground transportation

The airport can be reached via motorway ''A1'' (

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

Winterthur , neighboring_municipalities = Brütten, Dinhard, Elsau, Hettlingen, Illnau-Effretikon, Kyburg, Lindau, Neftenbach, Oberembrach, Pfungen, Rickenbach, Schlatt, Seuzach, Wiesendangen, Zell , twintowns = Hall in Tirol (Austria), La ...

, Exit ''Rheineck-Thal''). Taxis and a shuttle service are available. There is also a scheduled bus connection from the airport to the nearby towns of

Rorschach Rorschach may refer to: * Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist ** Rorschach test, his psychological evaluation method involving inkblots * Rorschach (character), a character from the comics ''Watchmen'' * Rorschach (comic book), a 2020 comic * ...

and

Rheineck Rheineck is a municipality in the ''Wahlkreis'' (constituency) of Rheintal in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. History Rheineck is first mentioned about 1163 as ''castellum Rinegge''. In 1218 it was mentioned as ''Rinegg''. An older ...

and their railway stations.

Incidents and accidents

* On 24 January 1994, a

Cessna 425 The Cessna 425, known as the Corsair and later as the Conquest I, is an eight-seat American pressurized turboprop twin-engined light aircraft. Now out of production, it was built by Cessna Aircraft of Wichita, Kansas, between 1980 and 1986. De ...

crashed into Lake Constance at

during its approach to the airport, killing all 5 people on board.

References

Notes

External links

St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport
(German) * {{DEFAULTSORT:St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport Airports in Switzerland Buildings and structures in the canton of St. Gallen