Continental will be flying from Edinburgh

The route is to be served by Continental Airlines, which plans to continue running similar flights from Glasgow.

Money from the Scottish Executive's Route Development Fund is being used on the service, the first time it has invested in an intercontinental route.

First Minister Jack McConnell said Scotland's "flourishing financial services sector" would have another direct link to Wall Street. It would also provide a "significant boost" to tourism.

The route development fund is a pot of money funded by:

• �5m from the Scottish Executive

• �1m from Scottish Enterprise

• �500,000 from the Integrated Transport Fund

• �300,000 from Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

It is operated in partnership with Scottish Enterprise, which administers it on behalf of the executive, VisitScotland and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Until now, it has been focussed on European destinations serving inbound tourism and business markets with 12 new routes attracted to Scotland.

Mr McConnell announced plans for the Edinburgh-Newark service at the 9th World Route Development Forum being held in the Scottish capital.

The service, which will be Edinburgh Airport's first scheduled transatlantic flight, is due to start in June next year.

'Better connected'

Airline and airport operators from all over the world attended the event which Mr McConnell described as a major coup for Scotland.

He said: "Securing this event for Edinburgh and Scotland is a major coup and comes in the face of fierce competition from many other countries who realise just how important this event can be.

"I know that Scotland has to be better connected if we are to make the most of the global economy. When operators ask the question 'why Scotland?' we want to give them the right answers.

We've had great success with Glasgow and we feel confident that both routes will do really well, side-by-side Jim Summerford, Continental

"Having the key players - the decision makers - here in Scotland presents us with a real opportunity to show them exactly how serious and determined the Scottish government is in supporting and developing new air routes."

Jim Summerford, vice-president of Continental, believes there is scope to develop both the Edinburgh and Glasgow routes.

"Edinburgh is a large financial centre and there are a lot of good business travellers from that.

"We feel very confident that once we get our fair share of that the route will do just fine, we've had great success with Glasgow and we feel confident that both routes will do really well, side-by-side."

International delegates

Scottish Transport Minister Nicol Stephen announced the introduction of a twice-daily air service between Birmingham and Inverness as he delivered a welcoming speech at the forum's opening reception on Friday evening.

Delegates from an expected 200 carriers and more than 500 airports at the three-day event.

The forum is the largest gathering of airline network planners assembled together at any one time, with more than 1,000 delegates attending from a variety of countries including America, Europe, Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.