Strong performance at Budapest Airport in 2012

Passenger traffic at Budapest Airport decreased by less than 4.7% last year, in spite of the loss of its base carrier and the protracted global economic crisis. The airport handled a total of 8,504,020 departing and arriving passengers in 2012.

A statement by Budapest Airport says, however, that the drop in air traffic movements, i.e. the number of takeoffs and landings, was much more dramatic, falling by more than 20 percent to 87 560, which is similar to the levels seen ten years ago.

Already on 3 February 2012, the day of the Malév grounding, Budapest Airport made huge efforts to fill the void left by the Hungarian national carrier. The objective was to minimize the negative impacts of the Malév bankruptcy on passengers and Hungarian tourism.

The other airlines moved very quickly to fill the gaping hole in the market. Lufthansa launched flights to Hamburg and Berlin within 72 hours, Air Berlin’s first flight from the German capital also arrived within three days. Wizz Air and Ryanair announced the launch of more than forty new flights in total on the day of the Malév bankruptcy.

A large number of new airlines appeared in Budapest in 2012, including the Greek carrier Aegean Airlines, the French service provider Brit Air, the Dutch carrier Transavia, the Finnish airline Blue 1, the Russian operator Ural Airlines, the German carrier OLT Express, and Ryanair returned to the Hungarian capital with no less than 28 flights.

Wizz Air announced the launch of ten new flights, and increased the number of aircraft stationed in Budapest from four to six. Many other airlines reacted to the situation by increasing the frequency of existing flights or their capacity by operating larger aircraft to Budapest. As a result, the utilization of flights, the so-called load factor, improved significantly, but the number of takeoffs and landings reduced by approximately 23,000.