With its announcement of the arrival of Kuwait Airways, Budapest Airport has lined up its first brand new entrant airline for 2023, while filling another white spot on tits route map.
Welcoming the airport’s 39th airline, the Hungarian capital city will mark the development of its Middle Eastern connections with the launch of a Kuwait Airways link to the airline’s base in
Kuwait City. The route will begin in June with a twice-weekly service flown by Airbus A320neos.
The airport described 2022 as an eventful year as it took major steps in its recovery from the pandemic reaching 75% of its record 2019 traffic level. It handled 12.2 million passengers last year and served 140 destinations, virtually the same as in 2019. All long-haul destinations except those to North America have been restored, while direct flights to China resumed at the end of 2022.
During summer 2022, traffic reached 80% of pre-pandemic levels, exceeding one million passengers per month. However, the announcement in May of an additional profit tax on airlines and the hard economic situation in Hungary caused passenger numbers to start falling again in the autumn. This has led Budapest to forecast that a full recovery of pre-pandemic passenger numbers will be delayed by one year, to 2024.
Air cargo volume reached 194,000 tonnes in 2022, breaking all previous records. This represents a 5.8% increase compared to 2021 and a 44% increase compared to 2019. This performance shows how Budapest Airport’s role as an air cargo hub in the Central and Eastern European region has been further strengthened.
