We wish all our friends all around the globe a merry, merry Christmas! May this be a wonderful day for you, your friends and your family, and may the joy of Christmas fill your hearts and souls on this day.
For quite some years Zona Taxi has taken care of transporting tourists from Budapest airport, named Ferihegy, to their respective hotels and destinations all around Hungary.
Now the time when Zona Taxi ruled the airport is over and instead Fő Taxi is doing the job. The price level remains the same and I guess there will be no big changes. One thing is though that Zona Taxi had a style, a design and a certain quality on most of their cars and im not sure if Fő Taxi can compete with that… Time will show!
Picture taken at Ferihegy Airport Terminal 1 today!
Last weekend a new Starbucks opened in Mammut Budapest, the nice shoppingcenter on the Buda side. That means Budapest now has two Starbucks‘ and as we all know the third will open within shortly in Király Utca.
Not long ago a new Friday’s restaurant opened as well, which means Budapest now has four Friday’s restaurant. The latest Friday’s is located at the Deak Ferenc Square, somewhere between McDonalds and Coffee heaven (former localities of Il Patio)!
Next time you long for a taste of America, you know where to go!
After long time of waiting and several delays the Margaret bridge is about to be opened for car traffic again. They are doing some tests on the bridge today, and if everything is okay it should be opened for cars late tonight or tomorrow! What a relief…
Make sure to check out the new lights on the bridge, as they have been restored back to the original design. This can be seen on the picture beneath this text as well.
It’s getting colder in Budapest and now you can find some very cheap hotels in the centre of Budapest. Below you can find some recommendations for good, central hotels which currently have very good prices on their hotel rooms:
Five star hotel:
Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal – check their prices
Four star hotels:
Eurostars Budapest Center – check their prices
Continental Hotel Zara – check their prices
Three star hotels:
Cosmo Fashion Hotel – check their prices
Erzsebet City Center – check their prices
A few days ago the news was given that a new Starbucks will open before Christmas in Mammut 2 as well. This will then become the first Starbucks on the Buda side of the Danube.
Great news for Starbucks lovers in Budapest, of whom there seems to be many as the Starbucks in Westend is packed from morning till evening.
Since the middle of October and lasting until April sometime the Fishermens bastion is free to visit again. The guards are on winter holiday which means free entrance for the rest of us.
After a lot of work the part of the Fishermens bastion opposite the Hilton hotel is open as well, so this should give the inhabitants of Budapest as well an excuse to visit this touristy place as well!
Budapest newest shopping center is opening today. The name of the center in Hungarian is Corvin Bevásárlóközpont, and it is a part of the project named Corvin Sétány (Corvin Avenue). This is a project in the eight district of Budapest, known as one of the worst districts in the capital, demolishing old and ugly houses, building new flats, opening new restaurants, a shopping center, a fitness center and creating new office buildings.
Today is the day of the official opening of the shopping center, while most restaurants in the area are expeceted only to open in March/April 2011. In Corvin Shopping center you can find for example: C&A, Hervis, Alexandro (book store), T-Mobile, CBA (grocery store) and quite some more shops. Maybe this new centre also will bring life to the kind of abandoned Corvin cinema?
The sun is still shining in Budapest and October has so far been a great month to visit Budapest.
A general advice is though to bring warm clothes as the wind can feel extremely cold, even when the sun is shining. And as the sun goes down it can get and feel really cold.
One of the coldest places on a windy day is the Gellert Hill and beneath this text you can see a picture from the liberty monument there.
As of April 2011 American Airlines will start with daily flights between New York (JFK) and Budapest. The first flight is supposed to land on April 4th on Budapest Airport.
Delta Airlines has for quite a while had a direct flight between Budapest and New York, but with American Airlines joining in the competition turns harder!
The official press release:
The news that American Airlines is to launch a daily flight from New York JFK airport to Budapest was announced in Budapest and London at the same time.
The first American Boeing 767-300 intercontinental aircraft is planned to land at Budapest Airport on 4 April 2011. This is part of the global flight development plan, the details of which and of the trans-Atlantic cooperation of American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia Airlines were announced in London this afternoon.
A piece of news closely linked to the announcement in London is that American airlines shall connect their hub in New York John F Kennedy airport to the capital of Hungary by a daily flight commencing in April 2011. As member of the One World airline association, American Airlines considers Budapest an important destination in East Europe, as passengers may continue their journeys using the network of Malév, another member of One World, from here to further destinations. Reservations for the Budapest-New York flight may be made from next week on, while Malév is preparing the so-called code-share agreement also for this flight, thus its passengers can use the network of American Airlines directly and at favorable prices.
The new trans-Atlantic flights were announced in London following the decisions of both the American and the European Union competition authorities approving the trans-Atlantic business cooperation of American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia. This means a total of 91 flights a day under the flag of One World. This also means that a strong competitor will face the two other major airline associations, Sky Team (Air France/KLM, Delta, Aeroflot, CSA etc.) and Star Alliance (Lufthansa, SAS, Continental, United, Air Canada, Austrian, Swiss etc.) on their trans-Atlantic routes.
The Budapest Airport airline development team has been working hard to add new overseas flights to the routes of the Hungarian capital for more than two years. Jost Lammers, CEO of Budapest Airport welcomed the achievement after personally being involved in the negotiations and noted the contributions made to this success by the Hungarian National Tourism Organization and Malev. “The vision of just a few people in the alliance and network planning team at American Airlines lifted the profile of Budapest within their Fort Worth headquarters as being a One World hub with significant growth potential and we are delighted with their confirmation of this big step.”
Director Aviation Kam Jandu who has been working with his colleagues to realize this project since 2009 said, “Adding another long haul carrier is an achievement in itself under the present circumstances of aviation, but more than that, the appearance of a major One World carrier in Budapest further broadens the offer, and sends a strong indication to other airlines on the market that it is worth putting the Hungarian capital on their list of destinations.”
Based on their business data in the first six months of 2010, American Airlines is the fourth largest airline in the world, which, together with its American subsidiary, American Eagle, serves 250 destinations with a huge fleet of 851 aircraft. The base of the company is at Forth Worth, Texas, which is the eighth busiest airport globally (with 56 million passengers in 2009), but it also has important centers at JFK New York, Chicago O’Hare, Los Angeles and Miami. Besides their inland flights in the US, American Airlines is traditionally very strong in the Caribbean and the Latin-American regions.
