The six new Ryanair routes – serving Cork, Seville, Bari, Rimini and Cagliari, plus Salonika in Greece – will bring the total number operated out of Budapest by the Irish budget carrier to 39. Already on the roster are Dublin and five in the UK, including London Stansted and Manchester. For locals, next year’s services will bring the holiday destinations of Sardinia and the Italian Adriatic that much closer. Cork is Ireland’s vibrant second city while former Expo host Seville embodies all the colourful clichés of Andalucía.
Many travellers will welcome the announcement by Wizz Air that the Hungarian company will start using Gatwick Airport, better and easier connected for London than Luton. A direct train service to/from the terminal and a considerably larger security-screening area should provide a smoother arrival and departure experience. The decision to offer direct flights between Budapest and Oslo means that Wizz toe-to-toe with Norwegian, who dropped its direct Gatwick-Budapest route in 2017.
The opening of direct Shanghai-Budapest flights by China Eastern, the country’s second busiest airline, reflects the significant increase in Chinese tourists to the Hungarian capital. With four flights a week planned from the summer of 2019, the new route may also pave the way for further trade between the two countries.
