Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport

Budapest Liszt Ferenc International is Hungary's sole major airport and Central Europe's fourth-busiest passenger hub, handling 17.6M passengers (2024) — a record set after the collapse of flag carrier Malév in 2012 forced BUD to rebuild as a multi-carrier, low-cost-dominant market. That pivot is complete: Wizz Air and Ryanair together account for roughly 55% of seat capacity, making BUD the largest low-cost-first capital-city airport in the European Union. Wizz Air runs its largest base here with a fleet of more than 20 Airbus A320-family aircraft permanently stationed at BUD, serving a dense European leisure network. Ryanair operates a substantial secondary base, and the airport anchors long-haul service from LOT Polish Airlines (Seoul), Emirates (Dubai), Qatar Airways (Doha), Turkish Airlines (Istanbul), and Air China (Beijing). Across 73 airlines the airport serves 165 destinations on 307 scheduled routes, with above-average German, British, and Italian connectivity reflecting labor-migration and tourism flows. Two parallel runways handle movements: 13L/31R at 12,162 ft (3,707 m) and 13R/31L at 9,875 ft (3,010 m), separated by 1,430 ft (436 m) — a distance that allows dependent parallel approaches but not simultaneous independent operations. Terminal 2A (Schengen) and 2B (non-Schengen) share a single airside with 36 gates; the 2019 SkyCourt central hall unified security, retail, and connecting transit into a glazed atrium that has become BUD's architectural signature. Terminal 1, the historic 1950 building, was mothballed in 2012 and remains closed. A Vinci-Corvinus consortium acquired operating rights in 2024, committing €5B to Terminal 3 construction, a third runway feasibility study, and rail-link completion by 2031.