Budapest Airport

Discover which airports, tourism authorities and individuals have been recognised in the industry’s most coveted awards.

This week: SAS switches Hong Kong service to Copenhagen; JetBlue increases Havana capacity; and LOT Polish Airlines adds London City link.

Brussels Airport has been crowned the overall winner of the Routes Europe 2018 Marketing Awards. Leon Verhallen, the airport's head of aviation development, said: “We had not been nominated for two years in a row, so we are absolutely delighted to win this award and be recognised by our European clients."

China, India, South Korea and Thailand are route development targets for Budapest Airport.

In the second of a two part feature, Routesonline takes a closer look at the airports named finalists in the Routes Europe 2018 Marketing Awards.

As part of our series speaking to previous Routes hosts, we see the progress made at Budapest since it hosted Routes Europe five years ago.

The shortlists for the prestigious Routes Europe 2018 Marketing Awards have been revealed, with 17 airports and six destinations in the running for an award.

Ryanair is set to enter the Jordanian market from next month as the Irish low-cost carrier further expands its operations in the Middle East.

This week: Frontier brings the first new mainline service between San Antonio, Texas and Ontario, California; Budapest gets an Agadir link; and Juneyao increases its Philippines focus.

Balázs Bogáts, head of airline development at Budapest Airport, explains how thinking out the box helped to secure routes to the US and outlines the Hungarian airport's future long-haul ambitions.

This week: An unusual move by LOT, China Southern grows in Australia, another US link for Edelweiss.

Owain Jones outlines the fast-growth airline's route development strategy to Routesonline

A record number of votes were received for this year’s awards. Discover which airports and destinations have been recognised for their marketing achievements by the airline network planning community.

The growing interest in Budapest as a destination is certainly helping to put Ferenc Liszt International on an increasing number of airline network maps, but for Kam Jandu, chief commercial officer, Budapest Airport, a long-haul link to the US is seen as a route of strategic national importance to Hungary.

The new routes will connect the countries directly, boost bi-directional tourism and establish an important link for trade and business between Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In compliance with the public service obligation rules, all five markets will be served on a twice weekly basis with flights commencing the first week of April 2017.

It seems there’s more than enough room in Budapest for Europe's rival low-cost carriers Ryanair and Wizz Air. Wizz Air CEO József Váradi and Ryanair CMO Kenny Jacobs share their plans to Routes News magazine.

The Asian-Budapest market last year experienced an impressive 20 percent increase, with the number of Korean visitors alone increasing by ten percent, having tripled over the last five years.

Kam Jandu, chief commercial officer at Budapest Airport, says airports shouldn’t panic if a dominant carrier stops using their facility.

The new non-stop link between Doha and Yerevan will commence from May 15, 2016 with a four times weekly service being flown using an Airbus A320 configured in a two-class arrangement with 12 seats in Business Class and 132 in Economy Class. The new route is understood have been facilitated by Qatar Airways’ network expansion across the US, a market which has strong links back into Armenia, but with limited current connectivity.

The new routes will commence from the start of the summer schedules in late March 2016 with the introduction of twice weekly flights to both John Lennon Airport in Liverpool and Keflavik International Airport, serving Reykjavik from March 27, 2016 and a weekly flight to Ibiza from June 18, 2016 to September 17, 2016.

From the start of the Summer 2016 schedules on March 27, 2016, easyJet will introduce a new six times weekly domestic connection between Bordeaux and Marseille and a four times weekly link between Bordeaux and Berlin. A couple of weeks later a new four times weekly link from Bordeaux to Barcelona will be introduced from April 15, 2016, while a three times weekly service to Venice will follow on April 17, 2016.

The arrival of the single 737-800 will facilitate the introduction of new links to Corfu from Birmingham, Bratislava, Budapest, Cologne, Rome, Katowice, Poznan, Pisa, Rzeszow, Venice and Warsaw Modlin as well as enable increased frequencies on its existing routes from Brussels Charleroi, East Midlands, London Stansted and Milan Bergamo.

Wizz Air introduced a twice weekly Birmingham – Warsaw route from September 14, 2015 and a twice weekly Budapest – Birmingham service from September 15, 2015 becoming the seventh new carrier to arrive at Birmingham in 2015.

Air Canada will use its leisure airline, Air Canada rouge to add flights to Budapest, Glasgow and Warsaw and resume a link to Prague last served in the 1970s, while Air Transat will offer new flights from Canada to Glasgow, Nice, Pisa, Rome and Zagreb.

European low-cost carrier, Wizz Air has reported a record first quarter and has subsequently raised its profit forecast for the year by as much as €20 million.