Vienna and Prague gain from loss of Malév operations at Budapest Airport
Hungary's Budapest Airport stated (16-Apr-2012) that two and a half months after the collapse of Malév Hungarian Airlines, "travellers are losing out on many connections with the beneficiaries being Vienna and Prague due to a lack of Hungarian aviation agreements in certain markets". The airport continued, "Vienna have 7.6 times more weekly flights to Turkey than Budapest and the Hungarian capital is lagging far behind Prague in the number of air connections to Russia. In fact Budapest has just 14 flights per week to Russia whereas Prague has no less, than 90. Both the Austrian and Czech governments have capitalized in recent years on liberalizing flights between their countries and these non-EU markets". With the collapse of Malév, over 80% of the lost point-to-point traffic has been recovered, however there are "certain destinations where Budapest Airport alone cannot introduce new carriers without properly modified traffic right agreements", the airport said. [more - original PR]