Everything you need to know about Budapest’s 2023 summer flight schedule

The blog site of Budflyer, a Facebook community collecting travel news concerning Hungary in some way, summed up what we need to know about the summer schedule of the Budapest Airport.

Summer schedule: new flights, new airlines

Budflyer.blog.hu’s analysis concerns the late spring, summer and early autumn period at Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt International Airport. Traffic is promising for 2023, but the airport still struggles with a labour shortage. There are multiple reasons for that, including the government’s so-called excess profit (departure) tax and the soaring inflation in Hungary.

The new schedule will enter into effect from 26 March. Passengers will be able to travel to more than 120 destinations from Budapest Airport. More than 40 airlines will serve their needs, according to the data of the FlightConnections database. In the summer season, Budapest will see four new airlines: Air Serbia, Kuwait Airways, Air Connect, and DanAir.

Air Serbia will offer 17 flights each week, a record high number on the Budapest-Belgrade route. With their help, passengers will be able to reach Russian, American and Mediterranean destinations from Budapest with only one quick transfer in Belgrade.

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The summer’s biggest surprise will be Kuwait’s national airline entering the Hungarian market. They will cover only a short period between June and September for now. The other two new partners are both Romanians. AirConnect will travel between Budapest and Bucharest, Cluj Napoca (Kolozsvár). The two Romanian cities are connected with the Hungarian capital with the flights of Tarom, Romania’s national airline, and the Hungarian Aeroexpress. DanAir will fly between Budapest and Bucharest once a week and would like to connect the Hungarian capital with Brasov (Brassó) twice a week.

Ireland, Türkiye, Persian Gulf

Concerning new flights, Ryanair will begin to fly to Belfast from 27 March twice a week. Wizz Air enters Türkiye’s market, operating two new flights between Budapest and Istanbul, Antalya. You may travel to the former from 31 March and the latter from 24 May.

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Wizz Air will continue its expansion in Saudi Arabia. It will start a new flight to Dammam (Persian gulf) on 20 April. New flights include additional summer holiday destinations in Greece, Italy, Spain and Croatia. Furthermore, AirBaltic will bring passengers to Riga and SunExpress to Izmir from Budapest. Emirate’s B777 will commute daily between Dubai and Budapest from 1 June, while you may use Fly Dubai in that direction.

What we “lose”

Unfortunately, Transavia will not operate its two flights to Lyon and Nantes (France). Ryanair will not fly to Bordeaux and Wizz Air will miss Fuerteventura and Porto. Air China will not bring passengers to Beijing even though they promised a flight for March.

Apart from the COVID period, this summer will be the first when there will be no direct connection between Budapest and America. LOT will not restart its flight to New York’s JFK even though statistics showed they were fully booked in 2022. Instead, the Polish airline added a new flight to Seoul, competing with Korean Air.