doing it all yourself
Flying over to the Alps for a few days' skiing has long been a popular thing for skiers in France. But until now there have been few skiers taking advantage of this kind of vacation in Austria.
Part of that has been because of the flights. Scheduled flights have traditionally been pretty expensive, while the charter flights are filled up with passengers brought by holiday companies and anyway have tended to fly at the weekends.
And many of the hotels in Austria have traditionally run holiday booking periods which go from weekend to weekend and have only allowed bookings outside those periods at a late availability stage.
But, with the advent of more flights from the cheaper air carriers being available to the area and the strong competition in the ski market which is making hoteliers look closely at their more traditional methods of marketing, Austrian ski holidays are becoming easier for travellers to arrange for themselves.
flights
The first hurdle is getting a flight - and a flight for a duration that suits. Scheduled flights, especially those into Munich, can often be very reasonably-priced. And flights from the less popular UK airports are now available in the winter from Easyjet and from Ryanair.
Here is the current state of play for winter 2007-8:
Innsbruck Airport
EasyJet is offering flights from London Gatwick, Bristol and Liverpool into Innsbruck. This is a brand-new service and is likely to be extremely popular with skiers and - conversely - with Tyroleans looking for a break away from the winter.
Flights from Gatwick are available six days a week (apart from Saturday) while the flights from Bristol are available three days a week (Friday, Sunday and Monday) and start on December 14 going all the way through to March 28. Liverpool flights fly three days a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday) from January 8 to March 27.
British Airways offers a scheduled flight service during the season operating seven days a week from London Gatwick into Innsbruck and a Sunday flight from Manchester into Innsbruck ( provided by GB Airways).
Munich Airport
Easyjet is offering flights from London Stansted and Edinburgh to Munich. These flights operate year round and every day of the week.
Zürich Airport
Easyjet flies, sometimes twice a day, between Luton and Zürich Airport. The flights are year-round and every day of the week.
Salzburg Airport
Ryanair has an extensive flight programme into Salzburg airport in the winter months.
- flights from Stansted run every day
- Bristol flights operate on Wednesday and Saturday from December 19 through to March 29
- flights from East Midlands airport operate on Saturday from December 22 to March 29
- flights from Liverpool airport operate on Saturday from December 22 to March 29
- flights from Dublin airport operate on Thursday and Saturday from December 20 to March 29
Jet2 flies a service from Leeds-Bradford into Salzburg which operates on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from December 15 to the end of March.
Flybe has flights from Birmingham, Southampton and Exeter to Salzburg, which run from December 15 through to March 29 and operate on Saturdays.
Friedrichshafen Airport
Ryanair run a daily or twice-daily flight from Stansted airport to Friedrichshafen, useful for the resorts in the Vorarlberg or the western part of the Tyrol. There is also a flight from Dublin on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Other Airports
Ryanair runs a schedule to Linz and Klagenfurt airports in the winter months from Stansted airport.
transfers
Many of the bigger resorts have an almost scheduled taxi or bus service to their most convenient or closest airport to meet the bigger flights on the more popular transfer days such as Saturday. It's also normally possible to buy a place on the travel company buses if they have space on the bus - talk directly to the driver or look for the airport administrator.
Some of the more enlightened hotels are starting to put together packages which are "land-only" - in other words, you arrange the flight and they arrange everything else, including transport from the airport.
And finally, you can arrange your own transport to the resort. Ski-Austria has tried to give an indication of how easy or difficult this might be on the relevant resort pages. For some resorts, taxis shouldn't be too expensive, for others, the train might be convenient, and for some, car hire might be a good option.
hotels
These days, there is simply no excuse for a hotel to turn down guests who don't want to come on the normal Saturday to Saturday rotation. But some still do it.
So, if you find yourself confronted with one that does, tell them that you will look for an alternative and do just that if they persist. There are plenty of other hotels who will be quite happy to take your booking (unless it is over the majorly busy periods, such as New Year or Shrove Tuesday).
Ski article added: 05.07.07