Early forecasts indicate further traffic increase for 2015, with expectations to surpass 9.6 million passengers.
On the back of a record-breaking year for passenger traffic, with average +7% growth, Budapest Airport is already set to storm into 2015 continuing its ceaseless growth and relentless route network expansion. Serving 9,155,961 passengers at the end of 2014 –an all-time high in the history of the airport – the Hungarian gateway has already announced an additional nine new routes and three new airlines to maintain the progression.
Early forecasts indicate further traffic increase for 2015, with expectations to surpass 9.6 million passengers. Budapest Airport kicks off the summer season in March with three new routes in the very first week. Vueling returns with a new link to Rome, while it will also resume its Barcelona service –both frequencies will be four-times weekly in average.
Meanwhile, 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, meeting considerable consumer demand for more flights between the Swedish and Hungarian capitals.
Supporting the advancement of its home-base, Wizz Air has also announced further expansion in Budapest, basing its ninth aircraft at the airport on 15 May, as well as 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. In an historic return later in the summer, Spain’s national carrier, Iberia, and its low-cost subsidiary, Iberia Express, will launch a seven-per-week seasonal Madrid service from June.
North Atlantic services to resume with Air Transat
The return of vital direct routes connecting Budapest Airport with North America begin on 18 June with yet another new airline partner, Air Transat, which is launching a weekly service to Toronto Pearson International Airport (with an intermediate stop at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport).
Commenting on this key development, Jost Lammers, CEO, Budapest Airport, says: “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.”
Significant frequency enhancements
The increase in several flight frequencies means Budapest Airport is also experiencing growth on a number of existing successful routes. These routes (listed below) add some 7,100 seats per week to available capacity from Budapest.
Looking to the future, Kam Jandu, Budapest Airports’ CCO comments: “Budapest Airport has unquestionably signaled 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 a nd enterprise throughout 2014 – reaching the nine million threshold was certainly the best Christmas present Budapest Airport could have hoped for.”
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
