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.

Changes at Hungarocontrol

He said it was Hungarocontrol’s responsibility that the Hungarian airspace fee was so low. He added that the state-owned company will operate under his authority from 1 August.

As a result, there will be significant changes at Hungarocontrol. They must think about the expenditures and the control mechanisms. He said they needed European talks to raise the airspace fee. But the basis of that increase would be new employees. Higher fees must cover the higher expenditures. That would mean more air traffic controllers for higher wages at Hungarocontrol. Experts said the company struggled with a labour shortage. Thus, they needed more people to satisfy demand.

The minister thanked the work of the Hungarian air traffic controllers and highlighted they would like to expand Hungarocontrol and change it for the better of the country. He denied the change would start with beheading the company leadership.

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