Everything you didn’t know about the World Airport Awards-winning Budapest Airport
Budapest Airport, 73 years old, has again this year won the award for the best airport in Eastern Europe at the World Aiport Awards.
Skytrax has raised Budapest Airport’s rating to four stars for 2023, putting it in the same group as London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol and Barcelona and Vienna airports.
When it opened in 1950, it had only 8 destinations and was used by 50,000 passengers a year. Today, that is the number of daily passengers, while 12-15 million people use Liszt Ferenc Airport every year. The record was 16 million in 2019. Almost 50 shops, restaurants and cafés, as well as meeting rooms, a VIP lounge, a museum, a prayer room, a children’s playground and car rental services are waiting for passengers.
This year, the highest number of passengers at Budapest Airport was on 14 July, with the highest number of flights on 1 June, due to the European Football League final.
Summary of the year at the airport
Compared to 8 destinations 73 years ago, this year, there were 130 destinations available from Budapest, served by 39 airlines, index.hu reports.
In 2023, approximately 3,778,000 pieces of luggage were checked in by passengers. Their bags travelled a total of 1,352,524 kilometres on the airport’s baggage conveyor belts. More than 200,000 tonnes of goods arrived at the airport this year, and the huge volume of cargo that is constantly being “produced” has led to an expansion of the Cargo City base: the warehouse area has increased by 6,500 square metres and the apron area has doubled.
Budapest Airport is open every day, day and night. The most extreme conditions were on 4 August, when the wind was 124.9 km/h. The hottest day was on 8 August, when 36.1 degrees Celsius were recorded, while the wettest was four days before, when 45.7 mm of rain fell.
Due to rising passenger numbers, the number of people working at the terminal had to be increased. The BUD team has increased by 10% this year.
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