Friedrichshafen Airport to Lech From €400 per vehicle

Friedrichshafen Airport to Lech am Arlberg is about 138 km by road and takes around 1 hour 40 minutes. A private transfer with Alpinum Taxi costs from €400 per vehicle, one way — not per person — for up to eight passengers with luggage and ski equipment.

Airport transfers on this route are priced the same in both directions. The fare covers every toll, skis and snowboards, child seats, and a door to door drive that ends in front of your accommodation. We take no deposit and hold no card details, and you can cancel free of charge up to 24 hours before pickup.

Alpinum Taxi is a taxi company based in St. Anton am Arlberg, on the other side of the mountain. We do not pass work on to anyone: the cars are our own — Mercedes Minibus 4x4 and VW Caravelle Minibus 4x4 — and so are the drivers, experienced local drivers who run the Flexenstraße all year.

Where the two routes part

As far as Langen am Arlberg this is the same journey as the one to St. Anton: the same border, the same Rhine valley, the same Klostertal. At Langen they separate. The St. Anton transfer goes into the Arlberg tunnel; the Lech transfer leaves the expressway there and climbs past Stuben and Alpe Rauz onto the Flexenstraße. That is why this drive pays no Arlberg tunnel toll — and why its last twenty kilometres are mountain road.

Which resort the transfer serves

Lech am Arlberg stands at 1,450 metres at the head of its valley and is one of the five Arlberg resorts. Zürs sits just before it on the same road, and Stuben and St. Christoph lie on the other side of Alpe Rauz. All five resorts share one lift pass, and we drive private transfers from Friedrichshafen to every one of them.

Skiing here runs from early December to late April, with around 300 kilometres of piste and 85 lifts. What the skiing means for the journey in is in our guide to skiing on the Arlberg, and the rest is in what you need to know.

Winter and summer transfers

Most of our Friedrichshafen transfers run in winter, when the resort is full and the skiing is on. Summer transfers are quieter, but it is the same road and the same price, and the same private transfers carry walkers and cyclists in July that carry skiers in February.

The five resorts sit close enough together that one driver serves all of them in a day. A transfer to Lech and a transfer to St. Anton leave the same garage and take the same roads as far as Langen, which is why every resort is quoted from one price list — and why a group travelling to two different resorts can be driven by the same firm on the same morning.

Ski transfers to Lech

Most of our winter work is ski transfers. Skis and snowboards travel free on the rear rack, outside the cabin — eight people and eight ski bags fit in one vehicle instead of two, and nobody spends a hundred and thirty kilometres with a boot bag on their knees. If you are collecting hired skis on the way, tell us and we will stop at the ski shop before your accommodation. What travels and what travels free is set out on the luggage page.

A ski transfer is not simply a taxi with skis in it. The ski rack is fitted before the vehicle leaves for the airport, the ski bags go on the outside and the boot bags go in the back, and a ski group of eight arrives in one vehicle rather than two. If you are collecting hired skis on the way, tell us and the driver will stop at the ski shop before your accommodation. Ski transfers run to every resort on the pass, and the same ski transfer that serves Lech serves Zürs on the same road.

In Lech itself we pull up at the hotel door. There are no restricted streets in the village, and we drive to every part of the resort — Lech, Omesberg, Stubenbach and Zug, the hamlet just outside it.

For Oberlech there are three possibilities, and which one is right is your hotel's call. Most guests ride the gondola up, and that is the ordinary case: we drive into the basement of the Oberlechbahn valley station, through the hall built under the road; the luggage comes out of the car down there, the staff load it onto trolleys two metres high, and you ride up while the bags follow. With a ski pass the gondola is included and the ride costs nothing. It runs from seven in the morning until one at night.

Hotels with a tunnel of their own out of the Umschlaghalle are the first exception. For those we drive up the steep road to the hall, where a barrier with a buzzer opens; your hotel meets you inside with an electric cart pulling a trailer and takes you out through the tunnel to the door. Above those tunnels is the piste — no road reaches those houses at all.

The second exception is the handful of houses at the very top of the road, above the Umschlaghalle, which neither the gondola nor a tunnel reaches. Those we drive to directly, the whole way up.

Tell us at the booking which of the three your reception named and the driver goes straight there. Private transfers to the resort are available all year, on any day and at any hour, including the hours when no bus runs, and your arrival time sets ours rather than the other way round: we work back from the arrival, not from a timetable.

Whichever part of the resort you are staying in, the drive is a comfortable one and it ends at a door rather than at a stop: no shared vehicle, no waiting for other passengers, and no walking the last stretch with ski bags.

The driver who takes you there

The same driver takes you the whole way. He meets you in arrivals at Friedrichshafen, loads the cases and the ski bags himself, and is still with you when you arrive in Lech — there is no handover halfway and no second vehicle. On a Friedrichshafen to Lech transfer that matters more than it sounds, because the person driving the Flexenstraße at the end is the person who has been watching the weather for you since the airport.

It is also the convenient way to arrive with equipment. You arrive at a door rather than at a bus stop, the bags come out where you are sleeping, and nothing has to be carried between vehicles. Guests who arrive late at night find it the most convenient part of the whole journey: the resort is quiet, the driver knows the address, and you are inside in minutes.

There are four realistic options for travelling from Friedrichshafen Airport to Lech, and which of them is the affordable option depends entirely on how many of you are travelling. A private transfer is the direct option; the other three all involve a change.

Lech has no railway station of its own. The nearest is Langen am Arlberg, down the Flexen road and past Stuben — so a rail journey begins and ends with a road transfer whatever happens. With hand baggage and two of you it can work; with a ski bag and a boot bag each, the changes are what decide it, and every one of them means lifting everything again.

Travelling from Friedrichshafen to Lech by bus means the most changes and the tightest timetable of the four. A rental car earns its keep if you plan to drive during the stay; if it would sit outside the hotel all week, a private transfer saves you the winter driving across a border and the return of the car on the morning of the flight home.

The four options, side by side

Of the four options, the private transfer is the only one with no change of vehicle: one car, one price, your door. The train is the strongest of the remaining options for one or two people travelling light; the bus is the cheapest option and the slowest; and the rental car is the option that only pays off if you drive during the stay. For ski groups the comparison is rarely close — four people with skis pay one fare between them, while every other option charges each of them separately and asks them to move the equipment themselves.

For a flight from Friedrichshafen we leave Lech four hours before departure. That covers the 138 kilometres, the border and the time you need at the airport, together. Tell us your flight number and we will give you the pickup time.

Four hours is the rule for this airport. For Innsbruck we leave three and a half hours before, and for Zurich five. The Lech to Friedrichshafen drive is the same road as the way in, in reverse.

From Oberlech we plan the pickup differently, and it is worth saying so when you book: if the luggage comes down on the gondola, its first run at seven in the morning decides the earliest departure. The return costs the same as the way in — from €400 per vehicle, tolls and ski equipment included.