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New direct flights to New York, Washington from Budapest on the horizon?
According to a statement from Hungary’s Ministry for National Economy, the government—among others—is working on establishing new direct flights between Budapest and major US cities, such as New York and Washington. In the past, the success of such a project would have been highly unlikely due to the lack of support from the Biden administration. Will the Trump administration adopt a different stance? Or does the US government even play a significant role in such decisions?
North American flights may return in 2025, MTÜ head said
As we previously reported, direct transatlantic flights to New York and Chicago from Budapest were discontinued following the COVID-19 pandemic. Budapest is now one of the few Central European capitals without a direct air connection to the United States or Canada after 2020, despite the sizeable ethnic Hungarian expatriate community in both countries.
A year ago, Zoltán Guller, President of the Hungarian Tourism Agency (MTÜ), predicted the return of North American flights to Budapest Airport by 2025.
In 2024, we reported that despite the absence of direct connections between Hungary and the United States, the number of American tourists visiting Hungary increased by 30% in 2023 compared to the COVID-19-affected year of 2022. This clearly demonstrates a strong demand for transatlantic flights. However, experts agreed that strained relations between the Hungarian government and the Biden administration had hindered the project. With Trump’s inauguration and his well-known friendship with Prime Minister Orbán, the situation might now change.
Budflyer, a Hungarian travel news Facebook page, referenced a statement from the Ministry for National Economy in which the Orbán administration emphasised its efforts to resolve the issue. The statement did not specify a starting date for new flights but cited Washington and New York as potential destinations. It also highlighted the aim of connecting other American metropolises to the Hungarian capital.
Strong demand for new direct flights from the USA to Budapest
According to Simple Flying, New York’s JFK Airport is the United States’ primary international gateway to Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. In 2024, JFK introduced new routes to destinations such as Bucharest, the Romanian capital, but Budapest missed out on this opportunity.
Simple Flying compiled a list of the largest unserved markets from JFK and found that Budapest ranked 10th, with over 72,000 passengers annually. The article noted that Budapest had been served by multiple carriers over the past two decades, including Malév until 2008, Delta until 2011, American Airlines briefly in 2011, and LOT Polish Airlines until 2022.
However, the relationship between Poland and Hungary has reached a historic low in recent times, with incidents such as the Hungarian ambassador in Warsaw being declared persona non grata. This followed Hungary’s decision to grant asylum to a former Polish justice minister, who has since relocated to Budapest. As a result, LOT Polish Airlines is unlikely to be the carrier to reintroduce direct flights.
The media outlet described Budapest as an intriguing destination, noting that direct flights between JFK and Budapest Airport “might perform well during the summer season but would face a limited pool of potential operators”.
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For years I flied Malev from Toronto to Budapest and then Malev was sold to the Russians. They gave you flights to Yekaterinberg and eventually Malev went out of business. Air Canada for a brief period of time flew to Budapest, stopped it due to the pandemic and was about to restart it in 2022 but abandoned that when the Ukraine war started. On this side of the Atlantic government has little to do with opening a new route. It’s a commercial decision. Now that Fidesz controls the Budapest airport I’m sure government poltics will be injected in all decisions. Daily flights to China are available for Hungarians. Nothing to North America.
The issue that US carriers found hitherto is the seasonal nature of the route. Budapest is neither an important business destination, nor does it offer a well-off catchment area of Hungarians seeking to travel to the US. Budapest is also well served with feeder flights to European hub airport offering plentiful opportunities to transfer. This doesn’t change the fact that a direct flight to at least JFK would be important. If it’s not commercially viable, which it isn’t, I suspect they’ll throw subsidies at an airline to make it reality. With the inauguration of Trump behind us, the government would like to evidence the thawing of relations and a direct flight appearing as if by magic would be a powerful tool to do so. It is absurd that there’s something like 25 direct weekly flights with China and not a single one with the US.