What parts of Europe do you find the air service lacking?

I have been repeatedly frustrated when trying to travel to the Alsace/Black Forest area in eastern France/southwestern Germany. What should be the primary airports for this region, SXB and FKB, are useless! The case of SXB is especially bad. How can Strasbourg with all of its European institutions not have service to any of Europe's big 4 airports, London, Amsterdam, Paris, or Frankfurt? And could we not expect for LH to serve FKB from MUC? Or KL from AMS? Indeed FKB has no "mainline" service at all, only low-cost carriers serving holiday and diaspora destinations.

That region isn't underserved at all. One airport you might have overlooked is BSL/MLH/EAP (EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg). It has flights to all four large hubs you mentioned, it's a fairly large airport. Larger than FKB or SXB. Besides, don't forget Germany's excellent high speed rail network and Lufthansa's interline agreement with Deutsche Bahn. Frankfurt airport is an important railway hub in Germany, both high speed and local lines. This means you can take a train from Freiburg to Frankfurt airport and fly to any Lufthansa destination, all on one ticket.

Europe is different from America, where every possible destination is served by air. In Europe that's not done. Most European hubs are slot restricted, meaning they can't serve everywhere. They don't have enough capacity for that, so they have to make choices. If a market is too small it doesn't get served, the capacity is needed to serve larger markets. But like I said, airlines get creative when it comes to that. If they can serve a destination by train that means they don't have to fly there. Trains have made domestic flights within Germany nearly obsolete.

However one place I found lacking was the Czech-German border region, specially the part roughly in between Regensburg and Pilsen. On the German side we find Nuremberg and Munich at quite a distance, with only local railway lines leading there. On the Czech side there is a railway line from Pilsen to Prague, but you still have to take local transport in Prague to get to the airport. In the north you find Dresden close to the border but in the south there is nothing. There just aren't any airports in this region, and public transport is lacking. Specially on the Czech side of the border, on the German side it's doable but still far from perfect.

Another region lacking air service is southern Hungary / eastern Croatia / northern Serbia / western Romania. As in most of eastern Europe, public transport leaves to be desired. There are airports in this region, but other than OU flying OSI-MUC and LH flying TSR-FRA/MUC (both at a low frequency) there is no mainline service. PEV and QZD don't have any airline service at all at the moment, not even low-cost. ARW doesn't have much and QND is still under construction.

The closest major airports, BUD, BEG and possibly ZAG, are quite a distance away.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

However one place I found lacking was the Czech-German border region, specially the part roughly in between Regensburg and Pilsen. On the German side we find Nuremberg and Munich at quite a distance, with only local railway lines leading there. On the Czech side there is a railway line from Pilsen to Prague, but you still have to take local transport in Prague to get to the airport. In the north you find Dresden close to the border but in the south there is nothing. There just aren't any airports in this region, and public transport is lacking. Specially on the Czech side of the border, on the German side it's doable but still far from perfect.

Karlovy Vary and Ceske Budejovce airports are finally getting passenger flights... albeit just summer charters so far

PatrickZ80 wrote:

That region isn't underserved at all. One airport you might have overlooked is BSL/MLH/EAP (EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg). It has flights to all four large hubs you mentioned, it's a fairly large airport. Larger than FKB or SXB. Besides, don't forget Germany's excellent high speed rail network and Lufthansa's interline agreement with Deutsche Bahn.

Not to forget french rail service, as there are TGV' to Paris in under two hours from Strasbourg.

Every region without a blue bubble is underserved, especially regarding direct flights:

https://www.flightconnections.com/

- Central Germany around Kassel and whole Eastern Germany except Berlin region: Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- Central France
- mainland Spain except Seville and Madrid region
- Slovenia
- South Western England
- Northern Netherlands
- North-Western Denmark
- Brest region

anavigato wrote:

- Central Germany around Kassel and whole Eastern Germany except Berlin region: Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- Central France
- mainland Spain except Seville and Madrid region
- Slovenia
- South Western England
- Northern Netherlands
- North-Western Denmark
- Brest region

Again, you're underestimating the German and French high speed rail networks. And Saxony isn't underserved at all as it has Dresden and Leipzig. From everywhere else you're only a train ride away from the airport, that goes for both Germany and France.

Central France is very parse populated, not many people are living there. But it has excellent connections to Paris. Further south, Lyon and Bordeaux are also easily reachable.

Slovenia is only a small country with one airport pretty much in the center of it. That one airport serves it well.

Southwest England has a direct train connection to London, with one change you're at Heathrow. Bristol has flights to Amsterdam (KLM) and Frankfurt (Lufthansa) so that can be used as a shortcut to avoid the long train ride to London. And if it needs to be, you can fly to Dublin (Aer Lingus) from Bristol and Exeter).

Northwest Denmark again is a parse populated area, closest airports would be Aalborg, Aarhus and Billund. Specially Billund has flights to all over Europe including the major hubs, and Aarhus has KLM to Amsterdam.

Brest, I assume you mean Brest France and not Brest Belarus. Again, don't forget about France's high speed rail network. There is a direct train from Brest to Paris, you can be at CDG before you know it. And if it needs to be, Air France also flies BES-CDG. So does RNS, which also has KLM to Amsterdam and Lufthansa to Frankfurt.

Only agree with you when it comes to Spain, although the Spanish high speed rail network is developing nicely meaning that not every town needs to be served.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

However one place I found lacking was the Czech-German border region, specially the part roughly in between Regensburg and Pilsen. On the German side we find Nuremberg and Munich at quite a distance, with only local railway lines leading there. On the Czech side there is a railway line from Pilsen to Prague, but you still have to take local transport in Prague to get to the airport. In the north you find Dresden close to the border but in the south there is nothing. There just aren't any airports in this region, and public transport is lacking. Specially on the Czech side of the border, on the German side it's doable but still far from perfect.

A bit North of your mentioned area there is (or was) Hof Airport. Unfortunately for at least ten years, there has been no scheduled service anymore to Hof anymore. In the past, Augsburg Airways, Contact Air or Cirrus Airways operated Lufthansa Regional service to Frankfurt, earlier even a triangle Frankfurt-Hof-Nuremberg-Frankfurt. However, those times are long over. On the other hand, what the area really lacks is better rail connection to South-Bavaria and in direction of Leipzig and Dresden From Hof you need almost two hours to Nuremberg City and another 20min to the airport, even longer to Leipzig or Dresden. There would be absolutely no need for an airport, if the rail service improved there.

anavigato wrote:

- Central Germany around Kassel and whole Eastern Germany except Berlin region: Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

Kassel has an airport hardly anyone uses, because there is no need to. From Kassel you are by car in two hours in Frankfurt or Hanover (or in 1:30h by train), one and a half in Erfurt and one hour in Paderborn, all airports with much more regular service than Kassel. That useless airport project in Kassel was one of the biggest wasted of taxpayer money we had in the last few decades in Germany.

Eastern Germany is sparsely populated and still most of those areas are quickly reachable by train or car from Berlin or Leipzig airports. No need for additional airports, that have no more than 10 flights a day.

I think we're overestimating the usefulness of DB's HSR network in light of their horrific reliability issues. SNCF is a different story, but France is also geographically larger and presents certain challenges in some regions, though others are well served by HSR for O&D traffic and the stronger regional airports (BSL/NCE/BOD/TLS/MRS/LYS) reflect their locations.

N1120A wrote:

I think we're overestimating the usefulness of DB's HSR network in light of their horrific reliability issues.

And that is overemphasizing the issue. I travel by train through Germany a lot. There is nothing "horrific" about it. Very few trains get cancelled. Some may be delayed, but I had much longer and more frequent delays on flights.


Gruß, masi1157

I don't think Strasbourg is that surprising.

Alsace is not that big/or populated. Half of the region is Colmar/Mulhouse which is next door to BSL. Then in the Grand Est there is Metz/Nancy which are relatively small and close by LUX and +1 hour to Paris.

Also Strasbourg is not that of a big or "trendy" city. Living in France, I would put Strasbourg one level below Bordeaux, Toulouse or Nantes in "regional importance". And it is not either a "booming" area where Parisians love to move to, like Bordeaux or Bretagne.

Some other interesting areas:

- Normandie: sparsely populated, getting to Le Havre/Deauville/Caen is a pain. Just airports with some holiday flights. They are not "that" far from Paris, but it is easily +2 hours by train or +200 km by car.

- Bretagne: it is a pain to get there, despite become very touristy and quite populated. It is a classic example of an area with too many airports competing with each other (RNS and BES mainly), NTE relatively close and Paris (specially now with the TGV) not "that" far from Rennes (but is a good +3 hours to Brest).

- Clermont Ferrand: this is an interesting example because CFE used to be a regional hub for AF. Now there is literally nothing around, LYS is almost 200 km (and bad train connection) and Paris +400 km.

In Spain:

- Galicia. Another example of too many airports (3) however now things are improving with traffic concentrating in SCQ.

- Zaragoza. It is not a touristic city (in a very touristic country) but Zaragoza is now Spain 4th most populated municipality. Yet they don't have a single hub connection. So if someone wants to travel from Zaragoza to Rome or Berlin, they need to first take a train to Barcelona or Madrid, another Cercanías to the airport and then the flight. With Air France or Lufthansa that would make things much simpler.

- Extremadura: not surprising because it is sparsely populated and Spain's poorest region. But Badajoz or Cáceres are really far from Madrid (with slow train), no train to Lisbon and BJZ has just some Air Nostrum flights to MAD/BCN.

volatus24 wrote:

The case of SXB is especially bad. How can Strasbourg with all of its European institutions not have service to any of Europe's big 4 airports, London, Amsterdam, Paris, or Frankfurt?

During the week AMS has double daily flights to SXB. The flights are operated by ERJ-145 aicraft from Amelia.