If passenger numbers for the whole of 2021 only reached a third of its pre-pandemic high, Budapest Airport at least handled unprecedented volumes of cargo. As far as travellers are concerned, the upward trend is promising, traffic increasing sevenfold between last June and December.
Where passenger traffic is concerned, November was Budapest’s busiest month of 2021, with nearly 730,000 travellers, February the lowest at 54 407. The most popular routes were London, Amsterdam and Paris, accounting for 17% of all business between them.
Long-haul, Seoul, Dubai and Doha were stable destinations. Direct flights to the US, Canada and China are yet to resume. Recently, Polish carrier LOT announced that its Budapest-New York service would resume in June 2022. Budapest Airport is also negotiating for several other long-haul routes, with a view to inclusion in the summer schedule.
Attractive Budapest encourages optimism
Balázs Bogáts, head of airline development at Budapest Airport, stated: “We set one important goal for 2021, to rebuild as many destinations as we possibly could. I consider last year a success in this respect, as we were able to reconnect to 80% of the cities from before the pandemic and added many new destinations, 18 to be precise. As Budapest and Hungary remain attractive destinations for foreign tourists and the rules in force in Hungary allow for flexible entry conditions, we have every reason to be optimistic for 2022”.
