People's (PE, Altenrhein) has announced it will launch winter charter flights from Altenrhein in mid-January 2022, operating 2x weekly (growing to 3x weekly during the peak winter season) to Billund and Gothenburg Landvetter on behalf of tour operator SkiTravelGoup AG.
"People’s airline sees that ski charters have sustained potential and will be pleased to operate inbound flights for the first time," the carrier said.
Winter charters will continue through the end of March 2021.
People's used to operate a sizeable charter business not just from Altenrhein, but also other airports in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. It suspended all operations from other airports in 2019 to focus on Altenrhein. Its charters from the Swiss airport are tailored to the needs of outbound passengers travelling for holidays to the Mediterranean.
The airline's core business is the Altenrhein-Vienna route. While nominally an international service, as Altenrhein is located in Switzerland, the airport lies just 1 kilometre from the Austrian border and serves both Austria's westernmost state of Voralberg and the Swiss city of St. Gallen. Following intermittent suspensions of the route during the COVID-19 pandemic, People's resumed operations in mid-February 2021. As of September 13, the airline has increased the frequency of flights from 3x to 4x weekly. In late October, it plans to increase the schedule to 7x weekly flights. Before the pandemic, People's flew to the Austrian capital 11x weekly.
Due to the slump in demand for business travel to Vienna, most of People's operations during summer 2021 were on charter flights to southern Europe, Flightradar24 ADS-B data analysis shows.
People's operates a single E170 regional jet, the ch-aviation fleets module shows.
