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The additions will boost Ryanair routes from Budapest to 67, with an annual capacity of 6.5 million seats, Jason McGuinness, Ryanair CCO, told a press conference in the Hungarian capital on Feb. 17. According to the airline, the enhanced operations will support 4,600 local jobs, including 330 “highly paid” local pilot and cabin crew positions.
“This is the most aircraft we’ve ever based in Budapest, […] We ought to call out the good work the government has done by abolishing the [special environmental] tax. None of this growth would have been possible if they hadn’t made the sensible decision to reverse this tax,” McGuinness said.
However, airline management is “slightly concerned” that the tax has effectively been replaced by higher airport charges, which have increased by some 25% over the last two years, he added.
“We’re heading to Croatia later today to announce a record schedule there, and the reason is that the likes of Zagreb and Dubrovnik are reducing airport charges. That’s what’s happening in all the progressive airports across Europe,” he argued.
McGuinness also lamented the lack of response by the government to the carrier’s proposals last March to base five new aircraft in Hungary, boosting capacity by 50% to more than 10 million seats and creating 150 new aviation jobs. The package includes opening 10 new routes from both Balaton and Debrecen airports, with an additional 500,000 seats per year at each location.
However, this would need a commitment from the government not to reintroduce any special taxes and on limited infrastructure works at the provincial airports.
Asked by the Budapest Business Journal for more details, McGuinness said: “If you’re delivering that amount of capacity into the market, clearly what you want is efficient facilities […] I’ve been a little bit surprised [since] we did meet the government, we did take them through the plan in detail, but broadly, it’s been radio silence ever since.”
He asked rhetorically, with a strong hint of frustration, “I don’t know how many more plans they [the government] have from triple-A airlines committing to grow by 50% in a four-to-six year period,” adding that there was no time for further lobbying. “We have four countries coming to Dublin every week wanting to work with us to grow capacity,” he said.
Asked if the plans recently announced by the government to double capacity at Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport were realistic for completion by 2034, Ray Kelliher, Ryanair director of airports and commercial finance, said the carrier has “every confidence” that these could be delivered, particularly because Vinci, the French minority partner at the airport, has an experienced construction arm.
“The issue they’re going to have is actually to convince airlines to fill that [additional] capacity,” Kelliher said. He reckoned that was unlikely, given the current airport charges. McGuinness was more pointed.
“Why would this take eight years? I have a horrible feeling that they are over-engineering and over-developing this. All they need is low-cost facilities. People want to go through the airport very quickly. They don’t want large Taj Mahals, they want efficient facilities,” he said. Equally important was the question of how capacity would be found in the meantime.
“Budapest needs capacity now, not in 2032 or 2034. Why can’t it be done in 18 months or two years, and done for a much lower cost?” McGuinness asked.
The Ryanair team then left for Zagreb, where, despite the praise expressed in Budapest for Croatian government policy, they complained about the authorities “wasting taxpayers’ money” and lobbied for the abolishment of “the outdated CAA [Civil Aviation Authority] Tax, which unnecessarily increases costs for airlines and passengers on all routes.”
In contrast to the anguish at the Hungarian government’s alleged lackadaisical response, the Ryanair team was full of praise for the approach in Slovakia, which, they said, has led to recent stellar performance by Bratislava airport.
“We presented a proposal, and within one day we had three ministers, from economy, labor and tourism, all saying ‘OK, what do we need to do?’” Ray Kelliher, Ryanair’s director of airports, told journalists in response to a question from the BBJ. He said the difference in reaction compared to Hungary was stark.
“We sat down with the ministers within one week. They had a task force assigned, with three different ministers responsible [for it],” Kelliher noted.
In response, the Slovak authorities reduced their Air Traffic Control fees by 65% and, according to Kelliher, this has resulted in traffic at Bratislava, “Doubling in size within a year and a half, not just with us, but other carriers as well. They’ve all opened bases and aircraft are going in because you have a government which sat down and said this airport is too expensive, lower the charges!” he said.
The principal Slovak airport, “Now has the opposite problem, because they only have a capacity of five million, and it’s full. It’s grown from 2.5 million to five million in 18 months.”
Impressive results, as described, but they are not exactly true, at least not yet. The Bratislava Airport website reveals that traffic last year totaled a record 2.44 million passengers, up by 490,000 or 25% from the 2024 figure of 1.95 million. On the 2023 figures, the rise was 34% over the full two years. Impressive, but far from doubling.
In a press release dated Jan. 13, the airport said it expected traffic to exceed four million passengers this year. Ryanair omitted to detail that the increase is largely the result of Hungarian arch-rival Wizz Air opening a base at Bratislava with four aircraft last year, and launching 14 new routes in both 2025 and again this year. The Irish carrier has chipped in, increasing its allocation from two to three aircraft last October.
Ryanair issued a press release on Feb. 17 claiming it would launch five new routes with the summer timetable, beginning at the end of March. However, further research revealed that flights from Budapest to Marrakech, Morocco, which were named as one of the “new” routes, have been running since at least this January.
The four genuine new routes in the 2026 summer schedule are: Dubrovnik (three flights per week), Krakow (two), Lamezia (four), and Newcastle (two).
Editor’s note: The BBJ asked Budapest Airport to comment on the views expressed by Ryanair in this article, but the press office was unable to give us a response by the paper’s print deadline. Subsequently, Budapest Airport told us: “Hungary’s appeal as a tourist destination and Hungarians’ propensity to travel are reflected throughout the year in airport passenger traffic, which is also supported by the expanding presence of airlines and Vinci Airports’ extensive international network. The airport’s tariff policy is determined by regional competitiveness and developed in consultation with airlines to reflect their operational needs.”
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of February 27, 2026.
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