Orbán cabinet may double airspace fee: another ticket price increase?

The Hungarian airspace is extremely busy because of the peak in summer traffic and the ongoing war in Ukraine. Moreover, flying over Hungary is cheaper than, for example, Austria. Therefore, the Hungarian minister for national economy believes we should at least double the airspace fee.

Doubling airspace fee would not reduce air traffic, minister says

The airlines pay a lot of money to national authorities to get permits for airspace use. We wrote HERE that the Hungarian airspace is one of the cheapest in Europe. Ferenc Turi, the CEO of the Capitol Consulting Group, said that in the West, the cost is EUR 50/unit. Meanwhile, Hungary gets only EUR 28/unit.

Márton Nagy, Hungary’s minister for national economy, touched on that issue in his interview in Infórádió’s Aréna yesterday. He said the number of planes in Hungary’s airspace increased because of the rising passenger numbers after the COVID pandemic and the growth of the transit traffic over Hungary.

He said such planes did not have an added value to the Hungarian economy, but pollute the country. “If they only fly over us […] they should pay more”, he added. He said planes would not evade Hungary provided we doubled the fee because jet fuel is expensive. As a result, the ministry is already thinking about the realisation, portfolio.hu wrote.