We will be arriving in Vienna at 5:00 AM on a Saturday in mid October. My friend suggested we reserve seats on the train to Salzburg. How long should we plan for it to take to get through customs and get to the train station?
Posted by
Vienna, Austria
5382 posts
Where is your flight arriving from? Hard to answer without that info.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
We fly from JFK airport in New York City, land in Istanbul, and then on to Vienna.
Posted by
Vienna, Austria
5382 posts
Ok, when you say customs, you really mean immigration. When you get off your plane, you will first go through immigration, where an immigration officer will stamp your passport. There is usually one line for EU and one for non-EU. How long will that take? Probably 5-10 minutes. Then you go and get your bags. Another 20 minutes. Then you walk through Customs. This is unmanned and you only stop if you have something to declare. This will take about 10 seconds. Then you are out.
As for your train to Salzburg, take the airport bus to Westbahnhof. Then take the Westbahn train to Salzburg. Trains are every hour and you buy your ticket on the train from the staff. Truly, there is no need to reserve a seat so early. Westbahn trains have free wifi too.
Bus schedule
http://www.viennaairport.com/jart/prj3/va/uploads/data-uploads/Passagier/Parken/VIE_Postbus_1187_de_en.pdf
Westbahn
https://westbahn.at/en
Posted by
Gettysburg, PA, USA
419 posts
Thank you very much, Emily, for that clear and concise description of what one does when landing at an international airport.
I can only hope that it might put an end to that eternal question: How long will it take me to get through customs?