Graz Airport

Geschichte

Graz Airport, known as Flughafen Graz in German, is an international airport serving southern Austria. It is located near Graz, the second-largest city in Austria, in the municipalities of Feldkirchen and Kalsdorf, 5NM south of Graz city centre.HistoryEarly yearsThe 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 Thalerhof internment camp, run by the governments of Franz Joseph I of Austria and Charles I of Austria. The first domestic passenger flight in Austria in 1925 serviced the route Vienna–Graz–Klagenfurt. 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, neither military nor civil. After reopening of Austrian airspace in 1951, a new concrete runway of 1500m was built in Graz. This runway was extended to 2000m in 1962. The route network grew quickly and the first international scheduled flight started in 1966 with a connection to Frankfurt.In 1969, the runway was extended again, this time to 2500m, and construction of a new terminal building became necessary. Special highlights were visits by the Concorde in 1981 and by a Boeing 747 on the occasion of the airport's 70th anniversary in 1984. Ten years later, another new building was constructed with a maximum capacity of 750,000 passengers a year. The latest extension of the runway was to 3000m in 1998.