People’s

Some airlines you collect along the way, because they are at every airport anyway. People’s belongs to the other kind: the airline from Lake Constance consists of a single aircraft, flies a single year-round route and departs from an airfield that many travelers have never even heard of. That is exactly what makes it appealing to spotters. This page shows you who is behind People’s, which aircraft to look for and when your chances are best.

People’s at a glance

People’s is a small Austrian regional airline based at St. Gallen-Altenrhein airfield. It lies in the canton of St. Gallen right on the southern shore of Lake Constance, just a few kilometers from the Austrian border. The airline itself is legally at home in Austria: the operator is Altenrhein Luftfahrt GmbH, with its own air operator certificate. The parent company is People’s Holding AG in Altenrhein. Under the umbrella brand People’s Air Group, the airline and the airfield operator Airport Altenrhein AG appear together.

This setup is unusual: airfield and airline belong to the same group. Scheduled and holiday traffic from Altenrhein is thus essentially carried by the in-house airline.

The company was founded in 2010 as People’s Viennaline. The name gave away the job: the new airline took over the connection between Lake Constance and Vienna that Austrian Airlines had operated until then. People’s began flight operations in late March 2011. In 2018, the “Viennaline” suffix was dropped – since then the airline has been called just People’s.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code PE: appears in the flight number, on the departure board and on the ticket. The Vienna flights carry numbers like PE100, PE101, PE106 or PE107.
• ICAO code PEV: is listed in reference works as the ICAO designator of People’s.
• Callsign PEOPLES: according to the same reference works, the airline’s radio callsign.

Because the fleet consists of only one aircraft, matching it on the tracker is easier than with big airlines: if you find a PE flight between Altenrhein and Vienna, you know which aircraft is coming. How to read data on flight trackers and what is behind callsign and flight number is explained in the guides on flight tracking for spotters and on the difference between callsign and flight number.

The fleet: one Embraer 170 named “Laura”

The People’s fleet fits in one sentence: one Embraer 170 with 76 seats. According to the airline, the cabin is fitted throughout with business class seats, People’s gives the cruising speed as around 850 km/h, and it calculates about one hour for the flight to Vienna. The aircraft is christened “Laura”, and on its fleet page People’s gives the registration as OE-LMK.

It began with a used Embraer 170 that People’s took over from Finnair in early 2011. Later the fleet grew to two aircraft, and at times a new Embraer E190-E2 was even under discussion. In October 2019 came the about-face: People’s focused entirely on Altenrhein again, reduced the fleet to one Embraer 170 and shelved the E2 plans. According to a 2023 report, management saw several more years of service for the remaining aircraft – turboprops were out of the question as replacements because their range is not enough for the holiday flights.

Feature	People’s Embraer 170
Number	1 (as of 2026)
Seats	76
Cabin	business class seats throughout, per the airline
Cruising speed	around 850 km/h (airline figure)
Typical missions	Altenrhein–Vienna, holiday and charter flights
Registration	OE-LMK (per the airline, as of 2026)

The Embraer 170 is the smallest member of the first E-Jet generation. You know its siblings from many European airports: the slightly longer Embraer E175, the E190 and the E195 look very similar but are stretched. The new generation, such as the E190-E2, you recognize by bigger engines and newly shaped wings.

E170 or a larger E-Jet? How to tell them apart

Other airlines also fly Embraer jets to Vienna. So that you don’t confuse the People’s aircraft with a bigger sibling, a look at the proportions helps.

If you still find type identification difficult, the guide identifying aircraft types for beginners gives an overview of the most important features.

Routes: Lake Constance–Vienna and holiday flights

The scheduled route to Vienna

The only year-round route is St. Gallen-Altenrhein–Vienna. It is aimed mainly at business travelers from Vorarlberg and eastern Switzerland, because the overland trip to the Austrian capital takes many hours. The flights are therefore at the edges of the day: in the morning to Vienna, in the evening back to Lake Constance – and the other way around.

Since November 28, 2025, People’s has, by its own announcement, offered two connections a day on all weekdays; an additional rotation on Friday morning was added for this. How the offering looks on weekends is best checked in the current schedule. At the Vienna end, the Embraer lands at Vienna Airport, the hub of Austrian Airlines.

Holiday and charter flights

In summer, the Embraer 170 regularly leaves the Vienna route. People’s then flies to holiday destinations from Altenrhein. On the airline’s website, 2026 lists Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Pula, Kefalonia, Corfu, Calvi and Figari on Corsica, Olbia and Cagliari on Sardinia, Naples, Calabria, Elba and Brač, among others. Which of these destinations are actually served in a given week depends on the season and tour operators. In addition, People’s offers the aircraft for charter and ACMI, that is, for missions on behalf of other companies – more on this in the article on wet leasing.

A look back

People’s has tried quite a few things in its short history. From November 2016, the airline flew from Altenrhein via Friedrichshafen to Cologne/Bonn. The leg across Lake Constance took only a few minutes and was among the shortest international scheduled flights in the world; in April 2017, the route was history again because of too few passengers. Until 2019, People’s also operated charter flights from Bern, Memmingen, Salzburg and Vienna. With the realignment in the fall of 2019, this chapter ended, and since then the airline has concentrated on its home base.

How to recognize People’s

The most important rule: there is only one aircraft. If you see an Embraer 170 with “People’s” titles, you have found the airline. A look at the registration is helpful: although the base is in Switzerland, the aircraft carries an Austrian OE registration. That matches the operating company in Austria and still confuses many who take People’s for a Swiss airline. More about the prefixes is explained in the article on country markings on aircraft.

On photos from the early days you still find the old name People’s Viennaline. Such pictures are small historical documents by now – when sorting your archive, pay attention to whether a photo was taken before or after the 2018 renaming.

Spotting People’s: Altenrhein and Vienna

At St. Gallen-Altenrhein airfield

Altenrhein is a small airfield with an asphalt runway 10/28 just under 1.5 kilometers long and a parallel grass runway. It is so close to the border that the threshold end of runway 28 is only about one kilometer from the Old Rhine, which separates Austria and Switzerland here. A bilateral treaty between the two countries therefore regulates, among other things, flight operations, flight routes and noise measurements.

An officially designated visitor area or observation deck is not described on the airfield’s website. So stay on publicly accessible paths and areas, keep your distance from fences and security areas, and do not enter private property. If you would like to see the airfield from the inside, you can ask about the airport tours offered. A webcam on the website shows you in advance what the weather and visibility are like right now.

In 2026 the airfield celebrates its 100th anniversary; according to the operator, almost 40,000 people came to the big celebration at the end of August. The roots go back to the 1920s, when a plant for Dornier aircraft was built in Altenrhein. If you want to dig deeper into the history of this company, a detour to the other side of the lake, to the Dornier Museum Friedrichshafen, is worth it.

Bonus: business jets and vintage aircraft

Altenrhein is interesting not only because of People’s. The airfield is a destination for business aircraft, especially during the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, when numerous private jets land in eastern Switzerland. You can find tips on this topic in the guide spotting business jets. There is also the Fliegermuseum Altenrhein (aviation museum), known for its airworthy vintage aircraft. A spotting day on Lake Constance can therefore be considerably more varied than the small scheduled traffic would suggest.

At Vienna Airport

Vienna offers the second chance for People’s. There, the Embraer lands between the jets of Austrian Airlines and many other airlines. For photos, the spotter hill at Vienna Airport and the observation deck at Vienna Airport are good options. Which runway is in use depends on the wind – the guide to the runway direction in use at an airport helps you choose the right side.

Common mix-ups

• Taking People’s for a Swiss airline – the base is in Switzerland, but the operator and registration are Austrian.
• Logging the Embraer 170 as an E175 or E190 – the People’s aircraft is the shortest version of the first E-Jet generation.
• Taking People’s Viennaline and People’s for two airlines – it is the same company, just with a new name since 2018.
• Confusing People’s with Austrian Airlines – Austrian used to fly the Altenrhein–Vienna route itself, today only People’s does.
• Assigning the IATA code PE to another country – IATA codes are pure airline designators and say nothing about origin.

Conclusion

People’s is the counter-model to the big airlines: one Embraer 170, one route to Vienna, one airfield on Lake Constance that belongs to the same group. For spotters, that is a real rarity – not because the aircraft is particularly unusual, but because there is only this one. If you know the times at the edges of the day and keep an eye on the schedule, you can add it to your logbook at Altenrhein or Vienna. More hard-to-find subjects are collected in the article spotting rare aircraft.