Ryanair announced that it will open its new Budapest base next Friday (17th Feb), as the airline confirmed details of record bookings on its 31 routes over the first 7 days following the closure of Malev. In response to this surge of bookings, Ryanair today announced further expansion of its Budapest base with a 5th based aircraft (from 26 March next), 1 new route Budapest to Tampere (32 routes in total) and 42 more weekly flights, with additional frequencies on Ryanair’s routes from Budapest to Brussels, Eindhoven, Gothenburg, Madrid, Milan, Rome, Stockholm and Thessaloniki.
 
Ryanair confirmed that this 5th aircraft (new Tampere route and 21 additional frequencies) will see Ryanair’s Budapest traffic grow to 2.4m passengers in its first year, sustaining up to 2,400 jobs in Hungarian tourism.

In Budapest, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said; “Ryanair will be investing more than $350m in its new 5 aircraft Budapest base, and thanks to the exceptional support of Budapest Airport and the Hungarian Government, Ryanair’s base will open on time on Friday 17th February next.  Ryanair’s new Budapest base will make up much of the traffic lost following Malev’s closure, but at fares which are less than one quarter of Malev’s fares and less than half the fares of the other high fare airline Wizzair."