United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier, Emirates Airline has announced it will launch services between its Dubai International Airport hub and the Hungarian capital Budapest from the start of the northern winter schedules in late October 2014, complementing the existing low-cost offering of Wizz Air (which serves Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport) and providing an alternative connection option to the current flights of Qatar Airways.

The new daily flight will launch from October 27, 2014 and will be operated using a 278-seat Airbus A330-200 configured in a two-class arrangement with 27 Business Class and 251 Economy seats. The new service will bring a significant capacity increase into the market to support the growing demand between Hungary and key business and trading centres in the Far East and in the Middle East.

With markets in Asia playing an increasing role in Hungary’s foreign economic growth targets, Emirates expects to see strong demand for this new service, especially to countries like Thailand, China, Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean Islands.

“Connectivity and mobility are crucial in today’s global economy, and our service to Budapest will open up a world of opportunity for people in Hungary. It will introduce faster connections for our customers - both passengers and exporters – through our Dubai hub to numerous points that are currently underserved, including Sydney, Taipei and Phuket,” said Sir Tim Clark, president, Emirates Airline.

“These vital connections will inject new demand for travel, help boost bilateral trade with markets in the East, and magnify the competitiveness of the Hungarian economy. Ultimately, our global network benefits our customers,” he added.

Budapest will be the third European destination Emirates will launch services to in this financial year, highlighting the carrier’s continued investment in the region and the wider European market where it has been adding frequencies and seat capacity on many of its existing routes.

Considered a financial hub in Central Europe, Budapest currently has the fifth largest economy in Central and Eastern Europe and offers a very favourable business environment for global investors. The UAE is Hungary’s largest Arab trading partner with annual trade between the two countries pegged at around $1.2 billion. Originally two cities, Buda and Pest, the now unified Budapest attracts over 4.3 million tourists each year, making it the sixth most visited city in Europe.

For Budapest Airport the arrival of Emirates is a major boost and will help it provide better connection options for the more than 275,000 annual O&D passengers that fly to and from markets across Asia and Oceania, also stimulating demand with the additional capacity and one-stop flight options.

The arrival of Qatar Airways in Budapest in January 2011 had opened up connection opportunities via Doha for traffic to and from Asia and Oceania and provided more convenient travel options for travellers to and from Hungary for the first time since April 2008 when former national carrier ended its own direct flights to Bangkok. Qatar Airways initially served Budapest via Bucharest but it introduced non-stop flights from October 2011 and from May 2012 now operates as the central point on a continuation flight to and from Zagreb.

“We’re absolutely ecstatic to welcome Emirates to Hungary,” said Jost Lammers, chief executive officer, Budapest Airport. “We’ve been working really hard with Emirates over the last five years to place fast-growing Budapest on their network radar, and I have absolutely no doubt that this new daily service will be extremely popular in connecting Hungary to the world.”

Until recently, the Budapest - Middle East market was underserved, but the new daily Emirates service means that the Middle East will become more accessible than ever, with 31 weekly scheduled operations by winter 2014/2015, offering a total of 6,166 weekly seats to the region. Joining the market gives Emirates a 32 per cent share of all scheduled seats to the region, while also offering 23 per cent of Middle East frequencies.

In our analysis, below, we look at annual bi-directional O&D passenger flows to and from Budapest from destinations across Asia and Oceania, a market Emirates will expect to see strong passenger flows. In 2013 just over 275,000 passengers flew between these markets, up 11.5 per cent on the previous year, with the largest passenger flows, according to MIDT data, to or from Tokyo Narita, Bangkok, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and Hong Kong (all markets of more than 16,000 passengers a year). The chart clearly shows how the market has recovered since Malev ended its non-stop flights to Asia in 2008.

Data provided by