“Austrian Airlines will cease operating its Vienna-Salzburg route, the flag-carrier announced on Thursday (2 July). Instead, the service will be replaced by more direct trains in an effort to honour the terms of the government’s recent bailout deal.”
https://www.euractiv.com/section/railways/news/austrias-trains-take-over-short-haul-flight-route/
I’ve never understood why anyone would fly within Europe with the train system over there. But if I was offered a flight in say, a Supermarine Spitfire that’s a different case. My parents, sisters and their respective families flew from The U.S. to Scotland for my niece’s graduation at St. Andrews in 2004 and then flew to Italy. I went by train the entire way. My mother said, “My time is valuable.” I said, “So is mine, that’s why I’m taking the train.” Once I got to Italy on a hilltop in Tuscany outside of Florence, I was bored out of my skull in about 30 minutes and the next day took an overnight train to Munich where all was well with a litre of Hofbrauhaus Munich Helles in my hand.
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When you are getting on/off an international flight it is much easier not to leave the airport.
When I went to Spain I found it much cheaper to fly into Madrid and then take a flight to Barcelona instead of going direct to BCN from the US. The way the flight times worked it would have been about the same time to take a train from MAD to BCN, but not having to lug the bag around to change trains ended up being a lot easier.
The air and rail fares were almost identical for the MAD-BCN segment.
When our cruise ship broke down in Barcelona last summer, we flew to our original destination of Rome. We considered the train (for about 2 seconds) but because of the geography, the plane made the most sense.
PS–The Vienna to Salzberg driving distance is only185 miles, so the train does make sense.
Fly into Frankfurt and the train is right there at the airport, that makes the most sense to me. I don’t know if this is still in effect but years ago a friend had tickets through to a small town in Switzerland. He flew into Zurich, got on a train and didn’t see his luggage until he got to his final destination. It was the same on his return.
I had that option 4 years ago when I flew into Zurich and took the train to Zermatt. The arrangements had to be made in advance, and I think the luggage migh not be delivered to your hotel for maybe a day, so I did not use that option.