First quarter brings record passenger numbers

The start of the year saw unprecedented traffic levels at Budapest Airport – close to two million passengers arrived at and departed from the terminals in the first quarter. In the period that has the lowest traffic traditionally – January, February and March – the growth of passenger numbers continued and was even accelerated in Budapest.
With an increase of 12.6% over the same period of 2013, Ferenc Liszt International Airport saw 1,969,029 passengers processed, its strongest ever first quarter. Landings and take-offs increased 5.5% year-on-year, incidentally on runways that were comprehensively refurbished last year.
It is also evident from the latest figures that charter traffic is starting to climb again after a temporary halt last year, as bookings for holiday-goers’ flights increased by 16.4% over the first  quarter in 2013.
Destination statistics is still topped by London (five airlines fly from Budapest to four airports of London), Paris stabilized its second place (thanks to frequency increases of Air France), followed by Brussels, Rome, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Milan, Amsterdam, Munich, and Moscow.
“Traffic results of Q1/2015 have superseded all of our expectations. This is testimony that Budapest and Hungary continues to be an excellent business and leisure destination.” said Kam Jandu, CCO of Budapest Airport. He added: “With some of our new airlines still to start their operations like Air China with Beijing, Air Transat with the Toronto route, and Iberia and Iberia Express with Madrid, I am sure that aviation will once again seriously contribute to the growth of Hungarian tourism this year. We continue to look further and try to attract even more new airlines or increase the capacity offered on existing routes in 2016.