Ryanair (FR, Dublin International) is weighing up the possibility of launching flights out of Vienna within the next 12 to 18 months, CEO Michael O'Leary said during the annual Airlines for Europe (A4E) gathering in Brussels.

"There's new management in Vienna airport, they're making some very progressive moves towards finally introducing some new route incentives and some traffic growth incentives and those are very interesting," O'Leary was quoted by Reuters.

According to the ch-aviation capacity module, the Irish LCC currently serves the Austrian capital out of Bratislava, located some 50 kilometres from Vienna. Ryanair operates a total of 55 weekly departures to 16 destinations out of the Slovak capital's airport, including 12 weekly departures to London Stansted and seven to Dublin International. Ryanair is currently by far the largest operator at Bratislava with 70.9% share of weekly capacity out of the airport.

Ryanair's move would follow other LCC carriers which have announced growth at Vienna. Wizz Air will launch its inaugural services out of the Austrian gateway in late April 2018, following which it will establish a base at the airport in June. IAG International Airlines Group has also announced it is planning to develop its low-cost unit Vueling Airlines' presence in Vienna following its recent unsuccessful bid for Niki (Austria). For its part, LaudaMotion, Niki's successor, has not, as yet, announced any routes out of Vienna.

easyJet already operates 89 weekly departures out of Vienna, which is the formal base of its European unit, easyJet Europe. It is also a significant base for Eurowings, Lufthansa Group's low-cost unit, which operates 189 weekly departures out of Vienna. The largest operator at Vienna is another Lufthansa Group subsidiary, Austrian Airlines.