Vienna Airport: third runway would not have paid off, growth ambitions are intact

VIENNA (Reuters) -A project to build a third runway at Vienna Airport which was scrapped on Tuesday after decades of planning would not have paid off and existing capacity allows for growth, the airport operator's co-CEO told Austria's ORF radio on Wednesday.

"Will we make a return on this 2 billion euro ($2.3 billion) investment? The clear conclusion was no, that's not possible," Julian Jaeger, one of the company's two top executives, said in a broadcast interview.

The company said late on Tuesday the expansion project had been abandoned on cost inflation and that planning-related assets worth 55.9 million euros would be written off. 

The shares jumped 4.5% to a five month high at 1023 GMT.

Jaeger said key airlines, Lufthansa's Austrian and Ryanair , had withdrawn support and the trend for larger and fuller aircraft translated into better use of the two existing runways.

($1 = 0.8640 euros)

(Reporting by Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich Writing by Ludwig BurgerEditing by Madeline Chambers)