Another airline seems to leave Budapest

Or rather, they will not even start operating in the Hungarian capital. The newly-founded Romanian regional airline, AirConnect had ambitious plans to launch flights between Budapest and a number of major Romanian cities this autumn. However, they first postponed them to next spring. And now, they decided not to schedule Budapest flights at all. Even though the company did not issue an official statement on the matter, its summer timetable does not seem to include flights to the Hungarian capital.

According to turizmus.com, AirConnect would have started their flights between Cluj Napoca (Kolozsvár) and Budapest, Bucharest and Budapest this October. Later, they postponed that plan until next spring. The company’s planes would have circulated in a W-shape on the Bucharest-Budapest-Cluj Napoca-Budapest-Bucharest route. The flight time between Cluj Napoca and Budapest would have taken 75 minutes, and 110 minutes between Budapest and Bucharest. AirConnect even started to sell tickets this August.

However, as the deadline approached in September, they announced that they would postpone the launch of their first flights to next spring. They said they did not receive the second ATR-72-600 aircraft (68 seats). The airline’s initial plans included routes connecting the major Romanian and Transylvanian cities such as Nagybánya (Baia Mare), Suceava, Nagyszebe (Sibiu), Marosvásárhely (Targu Mures and Bucharest.

AirConnect stated in December that they would postpone the launch of their first flights until 2023 summer. Furthermore, Budapest no longer appeared on the list of available destinations.

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Based on their summer timetable, the first AirConnect flights will take off on 22 June. However, they will not even connect the Transylvanian cities with Bucharest. They will only launch flights between Nagyvárad (Oradea), Kolozsvár (Cluj Napoca), Suceava, Temesvár (Timisoara) and Constanța, Romania’s biggest port located near the beaches of the Black Sea. That means they would concentrate on tourists planning to spend their summer holiday on the Romanian Riviera. Currently, that trip takes almost a day (or more than a day if you stop for a night break) by car or train if you start from Nagyvárad (Oradea), for example.

AirConnect’s Hungarian competitor, however, will start its first Budapest-Cluj Napoca-Budapest flights this December because of the considerable demand. They did so during autumn for a short test period, and the trial was an absolute success. Therefore, the company will operate that flight for at least until 15 February.

On Monday and Friday, there is one return flight between the two cities, while on Wednesday, there are two, both in the morning and evening hours.

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Source: turizmus.com