Budapest Airport sets another record, as traffic exceeds 12 million

Budapest, 4 December 2017. Traffic at Budapest Airport has broken another record, as the
number of arriving and departing passengers exceeded 12 million by the end of November.
Thanks to the dynamic growth, more than one million passengers used the terminals of
Budapest Airport in November, for the first time ever.

The earlier traffic growth in excess of 14 percent continued, as Budapest Airport registered
1,025,501 passengers during the month of November. This is the first time in the history of the
Hungarian capital airport that traffic exceeded 1 million in November. Since the Christmas and
the year-end period is always very busy, it is highly likely that traffic will approach or even
exceed 13 million this year, setting another amazing record after the 11.4 million result in 2016.

The dynamic traffic growth is showing no signs of slowing down during the winter. Forecasts
indicate that a natural dip usually occurs in traffic every year during January and February,
which is likely to be the case in 2018 as well, but traffic performance in Budapest has become
steadier and more balanced over the past years. This is partly explained by the fact that the
2017/18 winter schedule contained no fewer than 14 new flights and frequency increases,
including, amongst others, new services to sunny, seaside destinations or nearby cities in places
like the Canary Islands and Morocco. Both Wizz Air and Ryanair are offering new flights to these
places, at affordable prices. Also, Iberia is returning to Budapest from December, with a flight to
Madrid during the winter.

“We are very proud of the traffic growth, which is not only to the merit of Budapest Airport, but
also of the Hungarian economy and tourism. Budapest remains attractive for tourists and
business travelers alike,” commented Jost Lammers, the CEO of Budapest Airport. He added:
“There are fewer and fewer white spots in Europe, i.e. places where there are no direct flights
to Budapest. In addition to the transatlantic flights starting next summer, we are focusing on
another connection to the Far East, trying to attract Asian carriers to the Hungarian capital, as
these markets are becoming increasingly important for us.”

It is especially important that the traffic growth has not increased the burdens for residents
living in the vicinity of the airport, as the number of landings and takeoffs is growing at a much
slower rate than passenger numbers since the grounding of the base airline five years ago and a
significant reduction in the number aircraft movements. In practice, this means that airlines are
trying to increase the utilization of their aircraft, or use larger ones on routes to and from
Budapest. By way of comparison, whilst there were 126 000 landings and takeoffs ten years ago,
the number of aircraft movements is expected to reach 100 000 again for the first time this year,
following a large dip of many years. Moreover, more and more airlines are now using quieter and
cleaner modern aircraft.

To keep pace with the rapid growth in traffic, two years ago Budapest Airport launched a fiveyear
development plan called BUD 2020 (worth approximately 160 million EUR, or 50 billion
HUF), as part of which it renovated runway I and installed a new, state-of-the-art instrument
landing system (ILS), with an airport hotel due to open soon and a passenger pier of more than
10,000 square meters to be completed next year, for non-Schengen flights at Terminal 2B.