Budapest Airport is building on a record year in 2014 and has already this year announced nine new routes and three new airlines. Average growth of +7% saw the airport handle over 9.1 million passengers last year, and early forecasts suggest it will surpass 9.6 million in 2015.
Jost Lammers, CEO, Budapest Airport (centre), celebrated the airport’s nine millionth annual passenger last December. Average growth of +7% saw the airport handle over 9.1 million passengers last year.
The beginning of the summer season in March will see the introduction of three new routes. Vueling returns with a new link to Rome, while it will also resume its Barcelona service – both frequencies will be four-times weekly. Ryanair will add its 15th route from Budapest with a four-times weekly service to Athens, while SAS will commence a four-times weekly service to Stockholm Arlanda.
Supporting the advancement of its home base, Wizz Air has also announced further expansion and will base its ninth aircraft at Budapest Airport on 15 May. It is also adding four new services – Lisbon, starting 30 March; Maastricht, starting 15 May; Hurghada, starting 16 May, and Alghero, starting 15 June. With the addition of another 17 frequencies on existing routes, the continuously-expanding airline will add the equivalent of 15% more capacity to the Budapest market.
Meanwhile, in an historic return in June, Iberia, and its low-cost subsidiary, Iberia Express, will launch a seven-per-week seasonal Madrid service.
The return of vital direct routes connecting Budapest Airport with North America takes place on 18 June, when another new airline partner, Air Transat, launches a weekly service to Toronto Pearson International Airport (with an intermediate stop at Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport). “We worked hard for years with our Canadian partners to start this new service. All the preliminary research shows there is real demand for this, both in the leisure and the business segment, and will soon lead to increase of frequencies,” Jost Lammers, CEO, Budapest Airport, explained.
Looking to the future, Kam Jandu, CCO, Budapest Airport, commented: “Budapest Airport has unquestionably signalled that it is on the up. Fuelled by new routes and new airlines, the upsurge of our growth is further enhanced by the solid foundation of our thriving existing services. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our partners for their entrepreneurship and enterprise throughout 2014 – reaching the nine million threshold was certainly the best Christmas present Budapest Airport could have hoped for.”
