RyanAir in Budapest

Since the bankruptcy of Malév earlier this year RyanAir returned to Budapest and Budapest Airport and at the moment they have more than 30 destinations available from Budapest. As of today that makes up a very large percentage of all flights leaving and arriving to Budapest, making them very important when it deals with tourism in Hungary. Lots of people have a determination never to fly with RyanAir, while others fly regularly enjoying low fares and some not too comfortable stuff. Here comes a RyanAir in Budapest wrap up, at least the way Budablogger sees it!

Waiting outside for boarding unto RyanAir flight earlier this year!

As Malév threw in the towel Budapest Airport lost about 2 million passengers a year. Many of these passengers where transfer passengers only landing in Budapest and traveling on to the next destination within hours, spending hours and money at Budapest Airport. Since then Vienna Airport has taken over the role as leading transit airport and they for sure enjoy the benefits of the Malév bankruptcy. Only days after Malév went bankrupt RyanAir announced the fact that they will open their Budapest base flying to more than 30 destinations in Europe. Great stuff! The goal of RyanAir was to bring 2 million passengers to Budapest each year, thus filling the hole after Malév. The airport taxes paid to Budapest Airport per passenger flying with Malév is though less than what they in general get from a RyanAir passenger, so the part suffering in all of this is Budapest Airport. At the same time increased taxes makes it harder to operate the airport and that has also led to the increased fees for Budapest Airport parking.

Recently RyanAir has received some extra media attention in Budapest and Hungary due to two facts. The first is the fact that they always let their passengers walk to the flights, meaning no bus connection at all from the terminal building to the flights. Adding onto this is the fact that recently Budapest Airport set up small tents in which RyanAir passengers have to wait outside for their flights; with no toilets, washes or other similar facilities. The second reason just came to media as RyanAir announced that they will stop flying to 10 of their current destinations due to increased taxes demanded by Budapest Airport. So, what’s up with RyanAir in Budapest?

Personal RyanAir experience

The last year I have been traveling 4 return trips with RyanAir (all in all eight times). I must say that everything has worked out perfectly all travels. Of course, you might feel some fear if your hand luggage exceeds the allowed hand luggage size (do not try that). They might be strict if your paid luggage exceeds the kg amount you have paid for (15kg or 20kg). They might not let families with children enter before others to the flight (you will to pay extra to use the priority line), but still in quite some situations the crew at the airports have been nice and let us use the priority line even without paying for it… (thank you RyanAir)! In general I must say that if you follow the RyanAir rules, watch out for your luggage size and weight, and get to the airport and to your gate in time you should be able to enjoy your flight and hopefully also enjoy a real good price for your ticket.

Walking under roof from flight to terminal at Budapest Airport

Budapest Agent recently wrote an article complaining about the fact that passengers have to wait in tents at Budapest Airport. In my eyes this sounds much worse than it really is. First of all… before the tents where set up passengers had to wait outside in open air waiting for boarding their flights (done that a couple of times earlier this year). Luckily the weather was nice all times. Now they have set up tents and even built some kind of covered street to the tents, making it possible to get to the tent and almost all the way to the flight totally dry, even on a bad day weather in Budapest. I think that is a nice thing, at least compared to the fact that earlier this year no such thing existed at all!

Still it all sounds quite cruel. But, it is worth knowing that RyanAir only starts calling you to your gate 30-40 minutes before flight departure. This means that they check your boarding pass inside the terminal building and then send you out onto a short/long walk before finally arriving to the tent. As you arrive to the tent you do not have to spend hours there at all, but in general we are speaking of 5-15 minutes. Not the best, but compared to waiting outside in front of the plane (where there are no toilets either), I think this is no.

If you long for more luxury and no walking and waiting in tents or outside at all, skip both RyanAir, EasyJet and WizzAir, but if you want to fly very cheap, then this is what you get!

Less RyanAir destinations from Budapest

As of January 10 the 5 RyanAir flights flying from the base in Budapest will be decreased to three. The 30 destinations will be decreased to 20 and the RyanAir flights to the following destinations are supposed to be terminated: Baden-Baden, Birmingham, Bologna, Dusseldorf, Lubeck, Krakow, Malaga, Munich, Oslo and Thessaloniki. According to RyanAir this will also make 800 people lose their jobs as these destinations disappear. In addition the remaining 20 destinations will be visited less frequently (nine of them). This is a real tragedy, both for tourism in Hungary and Budapest and for Budapest Airport itself. But, who is to be blamed? Is it Budapest Airport who somehow had to increase the taxes? Or was Budapest Airport forced to do so by the present leaders of the nation? That is a good question and who really knows (see: Hungarian politics). What I know for sure is that RyanAir brings lots of tourists to town and 800,000 tourists not coming to Budapest means less hotel nights, less transfers, less people spending money on shopping and eating Goulash soup in restaurants… a pity!

Have you had good or bad experiences with RyanAir in Budapest? Would you like more RyanAir flights from Budapest, or would you rather see these Irish anti service people get out of the nation?

Ferihegy 1 to close down

Ferihegy 1, not long ago renamed to Liszt Ferenc International Airport Terminal 1, will close down probably by the end of April. Since the Hungarian Airline Malév turned bankrupt in the start of February 2012 there has been lots of empty space on Terminal 2, and due to this all traffic currently running on Liszt Ferenc International Airport Terminal 1 will be moved over to Terminal 2 by the end of April 2012.

Just some days after Malév turned bankrupt RyanAir launched flights to more than 30 destinations from Budapest, and since then WizzAir has also increased their amount of flights from Budapest. Besides this Volotea will also launch a new direct flight between Budapest and Venice, so things are happening. But, still, the drastic change in amount of flights and passengers still force the managament at Liszt Ferenc International Airport to close down terminal 1 and move all traffic to terminal 2.

Considering the fact that the new Sky Court opened in the autumn of 2011, which was a big investment, improving the shopping, restaurant and all facilities at the Terminal 2, this will also serve as a great bonus for all the people who have been using Terminal 1 so far, which is utterly small and incredibly boring with nothing to do between the time of check-in and take-off. Therefore for people coming with no-frills airlines, this is a bonus. For those coming with RyanAir arrivals has anyway been to Terminal 2, but for the rest coming with WizzAir, EasyJet, AirBerlin, Norwegian and so on, this is a good stuff.

Still for the sake of tourism in Hungary we hope that the amount of passengers and travellers coming to Budapest and Hungary will increase rapidly, and that the management of Budapest Airport will be forced to open Terminal 1 again within shortly due to the large amounts of people interested in our beautiful nation. RyanAir proudly claim that they will bring 2 million passengers to and from Hungary already in their first year, and if it should turn out that way, it might be that terminal 1 will have be opened up again already in 2013!

Ferihegy 1 behind bars
Ferihegy 1 will be closed down by the end of April

10 new WizzAir routes from Budapest

Wizz Air routes from Budapest
New Wizz Air routes from Budapest

Not long ago Ryanair announced 31 new routes from Budapest, and now Wizz Air launch 10 new routes from Budapest. Wizz Air had originally announced a new flight to Bucharest, but in addition to this they now add nine more flights. The new Wizz Air destinations are Malaga, Cluj Napoca, Bucharest, Warsaw, Sofia, Larnaca, Heraklion, Zakynthos, Rhodes and Thessaloniki. In addition Wizz Air hopes for permission to open new routes to Kiev, Tel Aviv and Moscow within shortly.

For more information about these routes and booking, visit Wizzair.com

Earlier Wizz Air already had quite a large amount of direct flights from Budapest and with these new routes they have a total of 35 routes departing from Budapest.

31 new Ryanair routes from Budapest

As we wrote earlier this week Malev turned bankrupt, and all their flights have been cancelled. Who knows better than anyone to use such a situation for their own advantage than Ryanair? Just a few hours later they announced their plans to launch 31 new routes from Budapest within the coming months. Crazy good news for Hungarians who like to fly cheap to a whole lot of destinations. They also try with this to get former Malev workers join their forces expanding their work in Hungary.

Here comes the full list of destinations and when they are planing to launch the new routes (and estimated prices):

Routes
Starts
From €
Routes
Starts
From €
Alicante
APR
49.99
Manchester
FEB
9.99
Baden Baden
FEB
9.99
Munich West
FEB
9.99
Barcelona
FEB
9.99
Milan (BGY)
FEB
9.99
Birmingham
MAR
29.99
Warsaw (Modlin)
JUL
29.99
Bologna
MAR
9.99
FEB
9.99
Bristol
MAR
29.99
Palma
APR
49.99
Brussels (CRL)
FEB
9.99
Paphos
APR
49.99
Chania
APR
49.99
FEB
9.99
Dublin
FEB
9.99
Pisa
APR
49.99
Eindhoven
APR
29.99
Rhodes
APR
49.99
Gottenburg
FEB
9.99
Rome (CIA)
FEB
9.99
Hamburg (LBC)
FEB
9.99
Stockholm (NYO)
FEB
9.99
FEB
9.99
Thessaloniki
FEB
9.99
London(STN)
FEB
9.99
Trapani
APR
49.99
FEB
9.99
Venice( TSF)
APR
29.99
Malaga
APR
49.99

It is time to fly again, though we do not really like Ryanair, this will for sure make it easier to travel from Budapest other nations, and of course to fly to Budapest from other destinations!