Vienna Airport is boosting its capabilities to handle growing air cargo volumes with a new Incheon Airport and Korean Air partnership.

In the announcement, Vienna Airport — one of Europe's busiest cargo hubs — said intensified joint marketing development activities and designing optimal cargo services should serve to meet the increasing demand for air cargo capacities between both economic regions.

Leading cargo hub for Asia

"We see an enormous opportunity to further expand our position as the leading air cargo hub to Asia," said Julian Jäger, joint CEO and COO of Flughafen Wien AG, who is pleased with the closer cooperation now with Korean Air and Incheon Airport.

He noted that Korean Air's decision to increasingly operate cargo flights to Vienna underlines the attractiveness of Vienna Airport and strengthens the economic development of our region.

"The expansion of our infrastructure is a decisive factor in fulfilling the growing demand for global air transport services between Europe and Asia and offering first-class services for the benefit of our customers," Jäger added.

Two corresponding agreements with Incheon Airport and Korean Air were signed by Vienna Airport during a working visit to the South Korean capital city of Seoul.

Vienna Airport said the newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Incheon Airport is an important pillar of Vienna Airport’s Asian strategy and will contribute to further strengthening its position in the region as well as establishing the airport as a high-performance air cargo hub in Europe for transporting goods between Asia and Europe.

"The common objective is to build up a partnership and benefit from each other's expertise through reciprocal knowledge sharing in areas of relevance to air cargo, such as handling processes and logistics systems," the announcement said.

Meanwhile, Vienna Airport is also expanding its cooperation with Korean Air — South Korea's flag carrier.

Vienna Airport noted that Korean Air has already been leveraging Vienna Airport's position as a gateway to Central and Eastern European markets for two decades.

"In this case, plans call for implementing joint marketing initiatives and an intensified transfer of know-how to strategically target freight forwarders and shippers and win them over by offering customised services," the statement said.

Korean Air has been regularly operating air cargo flights to Vienna since 2004.

Thanks to its geographically location, the statement noted Vienna Airport as an "ideal cargo hub" which efficiently links the region encompassing Central, Eastern and South-East Europe to Asian markets.

Extensive infrastructure investments in recent years have also reinforced the airport's role as an important destination for pharmaceutical goods — with state-of-the-art handling facilities in the airport's own Pharma Handling Center offer optimal conditions for high-quality handling services.

Total air cargo volume at Vienna Airport equalled 245,009 tonnes in the year 2023.