Budapest Airport breaks more records in July

Budapest Airport is keeping up the excellent performance seen in recent months in terms of passenger traffic and service quality.

In July 2011, the airport handled more than 950 000 arriving and departing passengers. This is the strongest ever July on record, taking the total number of passengers this year to nearly 5 million.

950 396 passengers – this is the balance of one of the strongest summer months, July, at Budapest Airport. The growth in traffic continues to exceed 10% compared to 2010, and the increase is still a sizeable 7.3% during the first seven months of the year if we factor in the traffic interruption caused by the Icelandic volcanic eruption last year (when approximately 140 000 passengers were lost at Budapest Airport over 4 days).

Another important milestone is that, following a strong June, in July the airport once again managed to exceed the threshold of 900 000 passengers – something that has not been seen for three years, since 2008. Moreover, this year’s figure also exceeds the earlier record for the month of July, set in 2007. And we get yet another record if we totalize passenger traffic in 2011 so far, when nearly 5 million passengers (4.94 million) used the three terminals of Budapest Airport.

In addition to passenger traffic, the number of aircraft movements (landings and takeoffs) has also started to increase considerably. Airlines took drastic steps in the wake of the crisis to improve efficiency, whereby they have managed to push the load factor of flights departing from Budapest to nearly 80% on average (overall figure, varies from airline to airline). As expected, Budapest Airport registered more aircraft in July than previously, with a total of 10 688 landings and takeoffs, which means a daily average of nearly 350 movements.

“The 5.9% increase in July compared to the same period last year is a significant step forward, and confirms our hope that 2011 will be our strongest year ever. Full service carriers continue to show dynamic growth, with long haul flights performing very well, thanks to the appearance of American Airlines and the return of Delta Airlines,” commented Kam Jandu, aviation director for Budapest Airport. “The traffic figures show that airlines are selling more tickets for their flights than last year, and have thereby significantly improved their load factors. In view of the growth and the improvement in the quality of our services, it was fully justified that we set ourselves the goal of developing Budapest Airport into the best and most dynamic airport in the region.”

London remains the most popular destination by a long way, partly thanks to its three airports (Heathrow, Luton, Gatwick). It is noteworthy that passengers traveling to the British capital make up more than 10% of the traffic at Budapest Airport, with passenger traffic to London having increased by more than 20% compared to 2010. The second biggest destination is Paris, followed closely by Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, Munich and Rome.