Minister of National Development in charge of tourism Miklós Seszták has awarded Budapest Airport CEO Jost Lammers the prestigious Pro Turismo award. This is an official ministerial acknowledgment of constant efforts undertaken by Lammers to attract new airlines to the country.
The award was handed over to the CEO by government commissioner in charge of tourism Gusztáv Bienerth (pictured right) at the Ministry of National Development.
Passenger traffic at Budapest Airport has increased in the past four years, significantly outpacing other airports in the Central-Eastern European region. Numbers have gone from 8.5 million in 2012 to 10.3 million in 2015, a 21.1% increase.
This year the airport expects to record more than 11 million.
Lammers (pictured left) said at the award ceremony: “On behalf of all Budapest Airport staff I am proud to receive this award, since each and every airport employee has contributed to our magnificent results in traffic increase – particularly our commercial airline development and marketing team.
“We continue our efforts to live up to the expectations of our passengers and be the best airport in Central-Eastern Europe in terms of both service quality and development. Our goal remains to attract more and more passengers from all over the world to witness the beauty of Hungary and Budapest.”
Budapest Airport experts have travelled extensively around the world in the last few weeks to further strengthen airline and touristic relations, especially with a focus on Asian destinations. As part of this effort, Chief Commercial Officer Kam Jandu attended an international conference in Beijing organised by the Capital Airport of Beijing, which is rapidly developing into the number one airport in the world.
Jandu met Chinese aviation officials and Han Zhiliang, president and CEO of Beijing Capital International Airport, to continue the good co-operation between the sister airports. Air China operates four weekly flights between Budapest and Beijing.
Budapest Airport’s airline development team also participated recently in the largest international aviation planning conference in the world, called World Routes, in the Chinese city of Chengdu. Here the main focus was on planning new flights for the summer 2017 timetable and beyond.
Intensive talks have taken place about the possible increase in air services between South Korea and Hungary, including special tourism promotion efforts to better introduce Hungary and Budapest through the Korean media.
Budapest Airport representatives held promising talks with major US carriers about restarting flights between New York and Budapest, which remains the largest unserved EU capital city flight connection.
Taking further this year’s success of Air Canada Rouge’s Toronto-Budapest flights was also on the agenda in Chengdu to offer better North American connections via Toronto, which should lead to more flights in 2017.
As for the development of European destinations, Wizz Air has announced further annual increases in Budapest by adding a new aircraft every year to its fleet, while easyJet started to operate Lyon flights this year and launched new flights to Amsterdam (three flights per week from this winter) and Venice (two flights per week).
