Brno will get a direct airport railway connection before Prague

A direct railway connection between Prague's airport and its city center has been discussed for at least the past three decades, with little real progress made to date.

Currently, Prague hopes to have the train connection from its airport in place by 2029. The city released visuals for what travelers can expect the new airport train terminal to look like earlier this summer.

Once realized, Prague's railway connection to its airport will shave an estimated 15 minutes off travel times to the city center. The current public transport option from the airport, an Airport Express bus, takes around 40 minutes to get to the city center and isn't exactly comfortable for those traveling with luggage.

As soon as this December, meanwhile, travelers in Brno can look forward to a direct rail connection to the airport. That's a neat trick, considering the Moravian capital doesn't even have a major international airport.

Instead, trains from Brno will run directly to Vienna International Airport in neighboring Austria as of December 11. The new rail connection was proposed earlier this year before being officially announced earlier this week after city councilors selected RegioJet to operate the new line.

During pilot operation of the new line from December through June, trains will run daily from Brno at estimated departure times of 3:48 a.m., 11:48 a.m., and 6:48 p.m. Travel time to Vienna's airport from Brno should take around two hours.

“We asked Vienna International Airport to assess which proposed departure times were the best for passengers in terms of connecting flights," Brno's Councilor for Transport Petr Kratochvíl told Deník.

"The airport's representatives thought RegioJet's offer was more suitable. That was an imaginary tip of the scales," he added. Gepard Express competed with RegioJet to operate the new rail line from Brno to Vienna's airport.

About 500,000 Brno residents travel to Vienna's airport every year to travel by plane further abroad. "I currently go to the airport by bus, but it will be much more convenient by train," Brno resident Robert Slovák told Deník.

RegioJet, Gepard Express, and Flixbus currently offer bus connections from Brno to Vienna's Airport. Travelers from Bratislava, Krakow, and even Prague make use of the bus connections to get to Vienna International.

Brno may not have a major airport of its own, but it does have an international airport in Tuřany. Currently, it operates just one regular cross-border route, from Brno to London. City officials hope to expand its offerings in the future.

"Together with representatives of the city and region, we are negotiating and doing our best to bring regular flights from other countries to Brno again," says Brno Airport spokesperson Lucie Mareš Heřmanská.

"With respect to the stage of these negotiations, unfortunately, we cannot be more specific at the moment."