Vienna International Airport, the largest international air transport gateway into Austria, has confirmed that its recently secured air service to Manchester was formalised during the recent World Routes forum in Las Vegas, USA. The route is one of three city and short break destinations that UK leisure carrier, Jet2.com, added to its network from its base at Manchester for summer 2014.

Jet2.com revealed in the middle of October that it would introduce the three times weekly link between Manchester and Vienna, the only direct service to the Austrian capital from the North of the UK, from May 2, 2014. At the same time it confirmed the launch of flights to the picturesque French market town of Bergerac – the only direct service available from the region – and the Channel Island, Jersey.

At the time Steve Heapy, chief executive officer of Jet2.com and its sister tour operator business, Jet2holidays said: “We are seeing a growing number of local customers supplementing their main summer holiday with a series of shorter weekend trips, so it made sense to further expand our city and short break offering from the North West with this fantastic trio of destinations.”

However, it has now emerged that the final decision to launch the Manchester - Vienna route was made during World Routes at the start of the month. Speaking to The HUB, Belina Neumann, head of aviation marketing & business development, confirmed that the airport’s attendance at World Routes had helped to get the route agreed.

“We are delighted to welcome Jet2.com with three weekly flights to Manchester next summer at Vienna Airport. For many years we have believed that Vienna needed a direct connection to North England and this service is perfect for us to extend our network in the UK,” she said.

“In a market where competition in route development is constantly increasing the Routes conferences offer an ideal platform for us to connect with airlines and industry players on a regular basis. It is, therefore, all the more welcome that the final decision and announcement of the new route Vienna-Manchester was made during World Routes 2013 in Las Vegas,” she added.

Vienna is currently the largest unserved European destination at Manchester Airport, a market that has not been served directly since March 2007 when British Airways Connect ended its regular service. Although Austrian Airlines and British Airways currently offer flights to Vienna from London Heathrow and easyJet from London Gatwick, there are no other scheduled links from outside of the capital.

According to MIDT data, an estimated 40,000 bi-directional O&D passengers flew between Manchester and Vienna in 2012 with more likely to have taken advantage of ground transportation to fly from one of the London airports. In the table below we look in more detail at the passenger flows between Manchester and Vienna in 2012.