30 Du Saar Budapest Airport

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Ferihegys history

Ferenc Mayerffy (1776-1845), abrewer of Bavarian origin, was thelandlord of the territory where thepresent airport is located. He lived inthis area and built a flourishing manorby the early 1800s. Mayerffy becameone of the wealthiest citizens of Pest,owning several breweries, vineyardsand many hop-fields. After his death,the land in the vicinity of his three

settlements was named Ferihegy-plain, in his honor.In 1928, the Hungarian Academy ofSciences inherited the familysestates, including Ferihegy-plain.Eight years later the AcadamysBoard of Directors approved a pro-posal from the Hungarian AviationOffice, to buy the land and use it tobuild an airport for combined militaryand civil purposes. The plan to con-vert Ferihegy Manor took up roughly410 hectares. In August 1939, thelocation of the terminal building wasdetermined, and soon after, construc-tion began on the buildings, grassrunway and roads leading up to theairport. Influenced by the SecondWorld War, the airport was given apredominantly military purpose. Thisresulted in a state of the art airportwith, for example, 60,000 squaremeters of concrete apron and manyengineering and hangar facilities aspart of the Hungarian Military

Aviation Research Institute. On theother hand, it also made it a target forthe Allied Forces, as German troopswere stationed at the airport. After

several heavy bombingsin mid 1944, Ferihegywas completelydestroyed.The decision to rebuildwas taken in 1947 andset in motion a fastrebuilding phase. Workon a new concrete run-way started on July 1st,1948 and five months

later, the 1.4 kilometerlong runway was fin-ished. At the same time,the Airport InvestmentCompany was foundedfor a further and speedydevelopment of the air-port. On May 7th, 1950,Ferihegy Airport(re)opened for trafficand the following day,the first scheduledflight departed forPrague,Czechoslovakia. In the1950s and onwards, the airport expe-rienced a steady growth in passen-gers, cargo and aircraft movements(see Figure:1). When the Iron Curtainwas erected (1961), Ferihegys desti-nation network became mainly orien-tated on other Warsaw Pact countries.KLM was the first Western airline tooperate scheduled flights fromFerihegy; in this case to Amsterdam.

On April 5th, 1966, a KLM DC-8also offered the first transatlantic airservice (10,5 hours), between NewYork and Budapest.

In 1974 the passenger numberreached more than one million. Tofacilitate this steady growth for theyears to come, several navaidupgrades were completed and in themid 1980s a new runway (13L/31R),a control tower and a second termi-nal, Ferihegy 2, were built. Thisgrowth also lead to the foundation ofthe Air Traffic and AirportAdministration (LRI), to operate the

airport, to control air traffic and man-age all other aviation related duties.

AIRPORTS OF THE WORLD

Aerlines Magazine e-zine edition, Issue 30 1

From Beer to hopefully privatized

Cheer, at Budapest Ferihegy Airport

The beautiful city of Budapest (Hungary) is divided into two halves by the river Duna (Danube). One

third of the city, Buda, is situated on the hilly and rough west bank, with two thirds, Pest, being situat-

ed on the flat east bank of the river. Therefore, Budapest Ferihegy Airport is not surprisingly situated

on the Pest side. Located approximately 25 kilometers southeast of the city center, Ferihegy provides

a comfortable and pleasant gateway to Budapest, Hungary and to many other Central and Eastern

European cities and regions. And with the expansion of the European Union, and Hungary being a

new Union member since 2004, this gateway expects to grow beyond belief.

By A.J. du Saar M.A.

Figure 1: Growth of passenger numbers and aircraft move-

ments from 1950-1980. Source: Budapest Airport Rt.


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Budapests operator

On January 1st, 2002, the LRI was split up into two sepa-rate companies. Hungarocontrol (supervised by theMinistry of Transport) manages air traffic control andBudapest Airport Rt. Is responsible for the managementof Ferihegy Airport.

Budapest Airport Budapest Ferihegy Nemzetkzi

Repltr zemeltet Rt. as the company is officiallycalled, is 100 percent state-owned. Its core activity is theoperation of the airport based on the asset managementlicense over assets owned by the Hungarian State. In thisrole, the company collects charges from the airport usersthrough fees related to aircraft and passenger transport, aswell as rental related assets and area use. In addition toFerihegy, the company also manages the airfield atSifok-Kiliti. A small airfield near Lake Balaton, which isvery popular among sports and recreational aviation sup-porters. Budapest Airport Rt. currently has around 2300employees.

Ferihegy Airport mainly competes with large airports ofneighboring countries like Vienna, Bratislava and Prague,and to a much smaller extent, with Hungarian regionalairports like Debrecen airport in eastern Hungary for fill-ing the position of a Central European collection and dis-tribution hub. Therefore, any profit on activities is usedfor further development so that the airport can satisfy andmake use of the increased transport needs (for examplelow-cost carriers) arising from of the current renewedgrowth in air transport. Developments are aimed atincreasing capacity, renewing assets and increasing theweight of the core activity. Its economic position can becharacterized by the fact that the requirements of externalfinancing for development are minimal.However, to promote participation of one or more tradeand/or financial investors in share sales, the governmentannounced a partial privatization of Budapest Airport Rt..A privatization tender is currently underway, after muchdebate in parliament and an earlier delay. It will be thelargest privatization in Hungary in 2005, and if complet-ed, it may result in a 150 billion Hungarian Forint ($780million*) bargain for the Hungarian treasury.Due to a steady growth in air traffic and passenger num-bers in recent years, many foreign airport operators are

interested in the 75 percent-minus-one-share stake inBudapest Airport Rt. Under the Hungarian PrivatizationAct, 25 percent-plus-one votes must stay in permanentstate ownership. Among possible bidders are, according tothe local media, the Venice Airport Authority (SAVEsPA), BAA from Great-Brittan, the Austrian airport opera-tor of Flughafen Wien, Spains Ferrovial, Fraport fromGermany and Copenhagen Airports. Privatization isexpected to be completed in 2005.The step to privatization is seen as a vital ingredient foracquiring additional market share and turnover and it will,according to the government, significantly increase the

airports future role as a major hub in the region. BudapestAirports CEO mister Hrskuti told the business dailyNapi Gazdasg that he expects a net profit of nearly 12billion in 2005 ($57,8 million*), from about 10 billion

HUF ($48,2 million*) in 2004. Sales will probably rise 19percent to 38 billion HUF ($183,2 million*), the NapiGazdasg states.To complete the picture of growth, Budapest Airport Rt.net sales revenu reached 28,8 billion HUF ($138,9 mil-lion*) yielding a profit before tax of 4,3 billion HUF($20,7 million*), as shown on the website of BudapestAirport (www.bud.hu).

Airport infrastructure

The airport has two runways, that are used for combinedgeneral and commercial aviation. Figure 2 shows the lay-

out of the field. Both runways are situated parallel in thedirection of 129 and 309 degrees. Runway 13R/31L was(re)built in 1948. By 1950, it is was extended for the firsttime and in 1958, it was extended to it present length.Taxiways D and A1 were constructed in the latteryear as well.

In July 1979, work on the concrete surface of runway13L/31R was started. This runway was not built in asteady pace as runway I was built, as it entered servicenot until 1983. After completion of runway II, the oldrunway was closed for intensive reconstruction and

reopened in 1987.


Figure 2: Airport Diagram of Budapest Airport.


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The relevant information about the runways is, in short:

Passengers terminals

Ferihegy airport has two terminals, called Ferihegy 1 and2. Ferihegy 1 was built in 1950 as the main passenger ter-minal. Since the the late 1990s, it was closed to passengerservice, but remained in use for cargo, general aviation

and the occasional charter flight. The terminal is situatednear the end of runway 31L. Together with several nearbyhangars, warehouses and maintenance facilities, it repre-sented the sleepy part of the airport until 2003. But inJune 2003, Ferihegy 1 woke up again as a dedicated low-cost terminal, with the inaugural flight of low-fare airlineGermanwings from Cologne (Germany) to Budapest.A couple of months earlier, the Scandinavian no-frills air-line Snowflake commenced its operation from Stockholm(Sweden) to Budapest. On top of that, several other low-cost carriers, like SkyEurope and Easy Jet, where planningto open a route to Budapest Airport.

Facing this growth in passenger traffic (see table 2),Ferihegy 1 was unable to meet the increasing demands. Itonly had two check-in counters, two waiting areas andcommunist-style comfort. On top of that, the strictersecurity regulations and EU requirements (Schengen)proved problematic. Therefore, in September 2004Terminal 1 closed its doors for a long-planned upgrade,that costed 8,7 billion HUF ($41,9 million*). When reno-vations are completed, it will have 19 check-in counters,

four security gates, seventeen passport control points, fourconveyor belts and six waiting rooms. Ferihegy 1 nominalcapacity will be 2.5 million passengers per year, but itsactual capacity might even be significantly higher. Given

that low-cost carriers are expected to carry 1.6 millionpassengers to Budapest this year, there should be enoughspace for further growth. Alas, while swelling passengernumbers, are currently overloading Ferihegy 2, the airportannounced during the end of May 2005 that the Ferihegy1 terminal relaunch faces a delay. Due to contractual dis-putes, it is unlikely to come into operation before thesummer of 2005.

Artist impression of Terminal 1 after refurbishment.

Ferihegy 2 consists of two separately built terminals, andis situated between runways 13R/31L and 13L/31R. Thefirst terminal, Ferihegy 2A, was opened in 1985 and has afloor space of 24.000 square meters. This terminal is usedexclusively by the national carrier, Malv, for scheduledand charter flights and by parterner airlines, which oper-ate codeshare flights with Malv. Ferihegy 2A was origi-nally capable of handling 2 million passengers per year.In the beginning of 2003, the terminal was closed forrefurbishment. Work at the departure hall, which lastedfive months, brought security standards in line with inter-national requirements. New surveillance systems wereinstalled, check-in counters were renovated and air-condi-tioning was introduced. The project costed 5 millionEUR, but the new open, light-flooded glass architecturegot rid of the wood-and-marble-rule from the airportscommunist days.

Terminal 2a. Photo by A.J. du Saar

Terminal 2B, situated next to 2A, was opened in 1988, andhandles flights of foreign airlines, like Lufthansa, BritishAirways and Austrian. Ferihegy 2B, is bigger then itsolder sister and has a floor space of 30.000 square meters.


Terminal 1 before it was refurbished.

Photo by A.J. du Saar


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Furthermoe, the facilities at 2B wererated under par, and received anupdate in 1998 without it beingclosed. Both terminals have facilitiesto X-ray and cross-check 100 percentof all baggage to fulfill the latestinternational requirements.

At the moment, Budapest Airport Rt.studies on the possibility to build athird terminal, likely to be called 2C.In May 2002, consulting companyRoland Berger started working on aten-year strategic plan for BudapestAirport. This ten-year infrastructuredevelopment will probably includethe building of this terminal, the con-struction of a new parking facility, thefurther extension of the existing apronand the establishment of a new cargobase due in 2 to 3 years time. As pri-vatization is still under way, airportmanagement is not very outspokenregarding these plans. Financing ofthe project may involve capital that iscommitted to privatization, variousEU-funds and private capital.

Table 1: Current growth in passenger

numbers, cargo (tonnes) and aircraft

movements.

Cargo terminals

The cargo-handling services atFerihegy are provided by BudapestAirport Rt. and Malv. The airportoperating company operates 4.000square meters of air cargo handlingfacilities while the airline has afreight terminal covering 6.500

square meters.Former airport operator LRI handled31.000 tonnes of cargo in 2001, andtogether with Malv (14.211 tonnes) atotal of 45.211 tonnes of cargo camethrough the airport. Current cargotraffic is 80.000 tonnes (according tounofficial figures) and could, accord-ing to several studies of BudapestAirport Rt. and Roland Berger con-sulting, reach 08.000 tonnes by 2012and 150.000 tonnes in 2015. As thecurrent cargo facilities are nearingtheir capacity limits, the airport hasbought a 20-hectare plot to develop anew air cargo and logistics base.Initially, the base was planned to bein use by 2005, but the privatizationprocess slowed things down. A part ofan overall strategy to make FerihegyAirport a leading cargo hub in CentralEurope, has provoked fierce politicalquestioning and a demand for aninvestigation into the land deal.

However, Budapest

is already function-ing as a hub for traf-fic to neighboringEastern European

countries and air-ports. The airport isalso very popularwith integrators andexpress companies,like TNT and UPS(see also the para-graph on Air traf-

fic). With 12.600tonnes in 2004(source: Fraport),this freight streamrepresents approxi-mately 30 percent ofall air cargo flown toand from Ferihegy.According to fore-casts from Fraport,with which BudapestAirport Rt. has sev-

eral co-operationagreements, thesevolumes could

increase to 34.000tonnes by 2015.

In light of the above-mentionedevents, according to local media, theairports management now wants toset up the new cargo base by the endof 2006. It will first establish a 5.000square meter office building and a19.000 square meter warehouse withan annual capacity of about 110.000tonnes. The construction of the newcargo and logistics base is estimatedto cost 5-7 billion HUF ($24-33 mil-lion*).

Accessiblity

To reach Ferihegys terminals youhave to travel by car, shared minibusservice or public bus service. There isno rail service available, although twosets of tracks virtually run over thedoorstep of Terminal 1 and come in

close proximity of Terminal 2A and2B. But all trains pass by at a com-forting speed of 120 km/h! Strangelyenough, Ferihegy Express Rt. wasestablished already in July 2001 by,amongst others, the HungarianRailways to manage a 20.3 billion*HUF ($98 million) airport expressproject. At the moment the consor-tium is still looking for investors tofinance the project. But according tolocal media, the express service is not

expected to operate any time soon.Since a few years, there is a dedicatedairport bus, which departs from andto Budapests city center every 30


Interior of Terminal 2. Photo by A.J. du Saar


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minutes. The journey takes approxi-mately 45 minutes. Prior to the air-port bus, one could reach the airportby express bus only, stopping atevery corner, from the undergroundterminus Kbnya-Kispest, which issituated far way from both the cityand the airport.

Figure 3: How to reach the airport?

Source: Budapest Airport Rt.

Airport TrafficIn recent decades, a variety of aircrafttypes took off and landed at FeriheyAirport. In the beginning, the militarytypes dominated: Messerschmits,

Junkers, Yaks, Ilyusins, PolikarpovsTupolevs were regular visitors. Theairport still receives its share ofTupolevs and Yakovlevs, like in 2003when more than 500 landings andtake-offs of those types were regis-tered. However, after the 1960s in thejet age, Boeings, DCs and Airbuses,slowly but steadily, took over.Nowadays, Feihegy does not handlevery large aircraft, but rather manysmall to midsized aircraft. Becausemore than 90 percent of commercial

traffic is from and to European desti-nations, it is mostly Boeing 737,Airbus 320 and Fokker 70 arrivingand departing. And from that 90 per-cent, nearly 65 percent of the flightsoriginate from the European Union.The most frequent destinations in2004 were Amsterdam, Berlin,Frankfurt, London, Milan, Munich,Paris, Prague, Tel-Aviv and Zurich.So, most flights are short-haul andhave a flying time of less than 90

minutes.Among the foreign airlines, Easy Jet,Lufthansa, Wizzair, Sky Europe, AirBerlin, British Airways,

Germanwings, Travel Service,and Air France have built up anoutstanding traffic figure. Inpassenger transport these ninecarriers served 67,8 percent oftotal foreign traffic.

A few carriers use jumbos or

bigger full-freightersweekly. One of them is theLuxemburg-basedCargolux, which started itsfirst scheduled flight inApril 2002. Cargolux oper-ates twice-weekly flightsbetween Budapest and HongKong and once a week flightsbetween Budapest andSingapore, using its B747-400Faircraft. Other full-cargo opera-

tors are TNT (BAe-146 andA300) UPS (B757-200F) andKLM (B747-400F). ATLAS Air(B747), Gemini (DC-10),

Lufthansa Cargo and EL-AL (B747)also visit the airport frequently, buton a more chartered bases.

Aircraft maintenance services

and facilities

Focusing on commercial airliners,Ferihegy has two well-equipped tech-nical service centers. Firstly, AeroplexCentral Europe, which offers servicesin transit check, pre-departure checks,maintenance and major modificationof respectively aircraft and aircraftsystems. Aeroplex is specialized inperforming heavy and light mainte-nance checks on several types of air-craft, like the Boeing 737 (all series),Boeing 767 and Fokker 70. The com-pany also holds an FAA certificationthat covers line services on the above-mentioned aircraft types plus the

Airbus 300-600 series. Their USoperator reference is UPS, which reg-ularly visits Ferihegy Airport.Second, Lufthansa Technik Budapest(LHB) is proving to be a promisingcollaborative venture at Ferihegy,since 2000. This company is part ofthe international aircraft overhaul net-work. It carries out the intensive Dand IL checks on Boeing 737s andAirbus 320s, which requires teardownor stripping and scientific testing of

aircraft components. LHB operatesout of two hangars rented fromBudapest Airport Rt. and has invested17 million EUR ($20,8 million*) in

its maintenance facilities on the air-port. The reason for choosingFerihegy lies, according to the man-agement of the company, mostly inthe fact that buildings and equipmentwere readily available, along with a

good supply of highly skilled workersand an acceptable price level withregard to operating costs.

Noise abatementAs Ferihegy is situated more or lesson the outskirts of Budapest, airportoperations are bound by several noiseregulations. To begin with, theapproach procedures prescribe a cer-tain descent that the increase ofengine power can be avoided as much

as possible. Also, the use of speedreduction and extension of landinggear and flaps must be used is such away, that a stabilized approach isestablished and the correct approachspeed is reached only 5NM on finaltrack. Also the standard departureroutes are minimal noise routes andavoid residential areas as much aspossible. Noise abatement departuresroutes have been designed for aircraftdeparting from runways 31L en 31R.All types of aircraft must follow these

departures. To avoid significant noiselevels during take-off, rolling take-offprocedures are advised by air trafficcontrol.Second, during the nighttime hours,22:00 - 06:00, the use of the airport isrestricted further to scheduled flightsonly and aircraft certified as ICAOChapter 3 and higher. Between 24:00-05:00 no scheduled landing or take-off can be planned or carried out.Third, with regard to land use plan-

ning (since 1997), also several meas-ures have been taken in the surround-ing area. There is a environmentalzoning law, and for residential house


Figure 4: Market share of airlines operating the

highest aircraft traffic.

Source: Budapest Airport Rt.


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and public buildings, there is a soundinsulation program. Homeownersqualify for purchase assurance pro-vided the home was sound-insulatedthrough the airports sound insulationprogram. Also sellers are nowrequired to disclose that the residenceis located within a certain airport

noise contour and the buyers mustsign that they have been made awareof this.Last but not least, the airport has anoise monitoring system that consistsof 6 monitoring terminals. The noisedata processing is carried out by onecomputer and another computer car-ries out the correlation with storedflight information data. The terminalsare connected by automatic dial-upmodems. Data is collected once a day.The noise limits are determined bythe so-called Zurich method.

Budapest Airport Rt.s main and clos-est partner is Malv; the national car-rier of the Republic of Hungary andhome carrier at Ferihegy. Before thelow-cost carriers started, it had oper-ated for many years around 50 per-cent of total air traffic on the airport.

The airline will celebrate its 60thanniversary on March 29 2006. Todaythe company can be ranked as one ofthe leading airlines of the Central

Eastern European region, offeringscheduled passenger, cargo and char-ter services. However, the storybegan with a company calledMaszovlet, founded under communistrule of the Soviet Union. In 1950,Maszovlet transfered its small opera-tion, consisting of Lisunow Li-2 air-

craft (the licensed Soviet version ofthe DC-3), from the nearby BudarsAirport to Ferihegy Airport.In 1954, the company name changedto Magyar Legikzlekedesi Vollat(Malv). With the delivery of the IL-18 six years later, it opened servicesfrom Ferihegy to several Europeandestinations, like Moscow,Amsterdam and Vienna. The TupolevTu-134 was the first jet aircraft forMalv and it landed on December 221968 for the first time on FerihegyAirport. The airline began in 1989 toreplace its Tupolev fleet (Tu-134 andTu-154) with Boeing 737 and 767 air-craft, and bought in 1995 six Fokker70 aircraft to complete this renewal.The fact that Ferihegy also becamemore quiet was a huge side effect ofthis fleet overhaul.

In 2003 Malv began exchanging itsfleet of 15 Boeing 737-Classics forthe latest 737 Next-Generation airlin-

ers. The fist 737NG in Malv liverylanded at Ferihegy Airport on January29th, 2003. At present Malvs fleetconsists of 28 aircraft (see Table: 2)

Table 2: Malvs aircraft fleet,

March 2005

Note: *): Amounts must be seen asindication, as current rates were used.

References:Budapest Airport, Traffic DataBudapest Ferihegy, 2003.Budapest Airport, Traffic DataBudapest Ferihegy, 2004Budapest Business Journal, severaleditions, 2005Budapester Zeitung, several editions,2004Hengi, B.I., FluggesellschaftenWelweit, 2003.http://strategis.is.gc.cahttp://www.boeing.comhttp://www.bud.huhttp://www.budapesttimes.huhttp://www1.cargocity-frankfurt.com,

EU accession brings major economicand transport challenges for

Hungary, 2004http://www.Malv.hu


Malev runs a busy Terminal 2A. A pushback makes way for immediate deboarding of another aircraft. Photo by A.J. du Saar

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