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Innsbruck Kranebitten (INN)

Innsbruck is situated in the heart of the Tirol area in the west of Austria. Kranebitten is the major airport serving this region and sees scheduled traffic by Austrian Airline and it's regional partner Austrian Arrows, Welcome Air, British Airways and TuiFly. Main destinations are Frankfurt and Vienna which are served 4 and 6 times daily respectively by Austrian Arrows Dash-8s.

Each year when winter approaches this airport transforms from a quiet little airport to a place that becomes overcrowded with aircraft and passengers. Expecially on the saturday charter airlines from Europe continue to deliver skiers and snowboarders for their turn to rush down the slopes. The majority of winter charter carriers come from the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Scandinavia.

Being located in the Inn-tal (Inn-valley) Kranebitten is surrounded by mountians with peaks up to 2600 meters giving it an almost unbeatable scenery.

In fall 2006 Kas van Zonneveld and I were discussing this airport when we decided to see what it would cost to go there for a long weekend. Things went very fast from there and before we realized we had our flights and hotel booked and we were set to go. We would fly out on friday and fly back on monday to get as much action as possible. Our flights with Lufthansa and Austrian Arrows would lead us via Frankfurt both times.

On the sunday Innsbruck still sees some nice traffic, although it is less interesting then on the saturday. Between the aircraft you have plenty of time to read a book, listen to some music or photograph something other then aviation.

On sunday evening it got more interesting again, with 2 OLT Saab 2000's returning and of course the SkyEurope with the Tirol sticker. We also met Mattheus M. de F. Barbosa (took me a while to understand him saying his name) who is from Brazil and was on a trip through Europe. After a while we decided to call it a day and head back into town, preparing for the flights home the next day.

Before our flights home we went to the visitor terrace to see what was around. Let's just keep it at 'not much'. After a nice talk with some Swiss guys a Dash 8-Q400 came taxiing in, but we were supposed to fly on a Q300. And sure enough, it got towed to the hangar. Much to our surprise it got towed back and our flight was called. Not a bad ending of the trip, not bad at all. Again next year?!

After 2 nice flights on a Lufthansa 737-300 and an Austrian Arrows Dash 8-Q300 we arrived in Innsbruck and were amazed by the scenery. After getting our checked luggage we went to the visitor deck to shoot the first aircraft. With friday being a pretty quiet day (weekdays all are) we shot only a few aircraft and then decided to call it a day and head to the hotel. After a nice dinner in a nearby restaurant we went to bed, anxious for the next day.

The day of days at Innsbruck, saturday, started off cloudy. The 2 Transavia flights from Amsterdam and Rotterdam were diverted to Munich and it looked like the overcast was there to stay. Our luck changed and slowly but surely we could see more blue in the sky. Right when the sun came out we met with Florian Trojer, who is often seen as 'the' local photographer.

With the weather getting better by the minute and traffic coming at a steady pace past the Martinswand (a huge mountain right next door to the airport, or so it looks) it was everything we imagined, but no snow! This airport was suffering from the same as any other in the alps, a total lack of snow and high temperatures. After a great afternoon we said our goodbyes to Florian and made our way back to the terrace for some more shooting, although with the help of a tripod.