Budapest Ferihegy International Airport

Budapest, home of Budapest Ferihegy International Airport, is the capital city of Hungary, as well as it's primary center for culture, commerce, and transportation. In 2007, official Hungarian government censuses placed the population at around 1.7 million inhabitants, which has dropped from it's 1980s peak of around 2.1 million. Budapest is located on the shores of the historic Danube river. It is a beautiful city with history stretching back centuries into Europe's varied and colorful past. As such, it is full of monuments and other tourist attractions, all of which combine to make it one of the most popular tourist destinations in all of Europe.

Budapest has, in fact, been in existence as a settled location since the Roman's built the colony city of Aquincum there in 89 - there is even evidence that it may have been built on the even earlier foundations of a Celtic village. Who would have thought, looking a little cluster of wood and straw huts in the then untracked Hungarian forest, that such a place would one day be the bustling center of population and culture that it is today? Who would have though, looking at those vast untouched forests, that one day the wide runways of the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport would be landing 747s and private airliners carrying passengers to see the sights of what is and what has been?

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Hungary is a landlocked country in central eastern Europe, bordered by Austria, Croatia, and several other small countries. Hungary is as rich with history, culture and tradition and history as is its capital city, and makes a great place for a vacation for anyone who's interested in seeing something that's a little off the beaten path, something a little different from the average run of the mill tropical island cruise or tours through Paris. Hungary has a thriving tourist industry, but is still enough of an interesting place to visit to make stories of your travels sure hits in the conversation around the dinner table on those nights with friends.

In the early history of Europe, several large movements of people groups took place, with invasion armies moving across the entire continent in powerful sweeps. One of these people groups was the Huns, under their leader Attila - know today as Attila the Hun. Though the Huns did pass through Hungary, most scholars believe that the name "Hungary" does not actually stem from the name "Hun." Rather, they say, it comes from a 7th century alliance called On-Ogour, or "ten arrows" in Turkish.

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Toward the end of the Soviet Union's hold over Eastern Europe in the 1980s, Hungary led the way toward dissolving the Warsaw Pact. That eagerness didn't stop with Hungary's independence - from there it continued to join NATO and finally the European Union in 2004. So, for the traveler around Europe, everything specific to the European Union is also specific to Hungary - the use of the Euro, passports, visas, and everything else being in the European Union implies.

The openness of Hungary is one of it's great strengths, attracting millions of eager tourists every year from all over the world. And most of those people pour into Hungary through the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport in Budapest - the largest international airport in the entire country, let alone Budapest itself. It's that capability and the airport's capacity that make the country so easy to visit, especially for anyone from another European Union country. With all of these factors, Budapest and Hungary at large are both quite very successful tourist locations for the eager world traveler and his or her camera to visit.

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The Budapest Ferihegy International Airport is the only international airport in the entire city of Budapest, and is in fact the largest airport in the entire nation of Hungary. It offers connections all over the world - Asia, the Middle East, North America - though the majority of it's connections are throughout the rest of Europe and the European Union.

Sixteen kilometers east of Budapest's city center, the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport is easily accessible by major roads leading into and out of the city proper, with easy and cheap transportation to nearby hotels and places of lodging. The Budapest Ferihegy International Airport is generally reliable - weather conditions are decent. We will address this later. Because the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport is so large, it is able to land major jets like the Boeing 747 and the Antonov An-124. Most of the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport's air traffic, though, consists of twin engine jets and transport planes from around the rest of the European Union, such as short range tourist and cargo planes just looking to make a quick hop rather than the long-haul flights from the Americas or from eastern China.

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The Budapest Ferihegy International Airport has been around for a while - for nearly as long as the technology built to let planes land and take off has, in fact. When the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport was built, the United States was still flying the P-51 Mustang as a fighter aircraft and most planes flew by propeller. That was 1950, and the airport was built as a hub for Maszovlet airlines, the predecessor to the modern airline MALEV Hungarian Airlines. At that time, it consisted of a 2500 meter runway, a hangar, and a single terminal. As such, it was an important hub of transportation, but wasn't truly effective until the airport grounds were expanded. In 1961, the main runway was extended to 3010 meters, long enough to land much longer planes than the original 2500 meter runway allowed into the airport. As Budapest's only large airport, this of course was an extremely important addition to the city's tourist and travel industry, as well as allowing more and more large cargo planes or military planes into the area.

The most important additions, however, to the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport were made in 1985. A modern terminal was added to the existing older terminal and a new runway was built - this new runway was 3706 meters long, large enough to land most of the very large planes in the air even today, including the Boeing 747 and the Antonov An-124. Today, in fact, most of the airport's traffic consists of Boeing and Airbus twin jets, as well as a few long haul Boeing 767s, a very large widebody jet which would have difficulty landing on the previous shorter runways.

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The older terminal of the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport is large enough that it has been split into two main locations, close enough to easily move between on foot. The new terminal, however, apart from the airport's original construction, is far enough away that it is generally reached by bus or other ground transportation. Airport management is currently working on expanding the airport to add a new cargo base for incoming cargo craft from around the world. This cargo addition would give the city of Budapest a great new economic boost, as it would make it much easier for overseas producers to ship product into the city as well as for the city to export product overseas and around the world.

The new terminal, Terminal 1, is the main commercial center of the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport and services all low cost airlines, like SkyEurope, Germanwings, and easyJet, among others. Renovated in 2005, Terminal 1 was also the main cargo base until construction began on the new base - though that new construction has been delayed with a new crop of problems which have sprung with a recent scandal involving funding and politics. When those two aspects combine, what else can follow but scandal?

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As we've already stated, the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport is capable of landing most types of aircraft in use by modern airlines today. The Antonov An-124, which we've already, mentioned, is a good example of the sorts of aircraft the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport is capable of landing and servicing with its 3700 meter runway and new terminal and hangar equipment.

The An-124 is a cargo plane, similar in design to the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, but with about twenty five percent more cargo space capacity. They've been used to carry everything from yachts to automobiles, and can open the nose and kneel in order to allow easier front loading. It can carry 150 tonnes of cargo, as well as 88 passengers in the passenger deck behind the cockpit.

This is only one example of the sorts of aircraft the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport has been built to handle, but it's a good one. With that kind of capacity at its beck and call, the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport is perhaps one of the single most important features of the city of Budapest, and a vital artery of transportation to both Budapest and Hungary at large. Budapest is, after all, both the political and economical capital of the country, and as such, needs to be able to communicate easily with the rest of the world both in terms of communication and transportation.

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Though nothing like the security concerns that might trouble officials in the United States or Great Britain, the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport still faces the occasional problem or incident, and as such takes its security very seriously, especially in this modern time of terrorism and global crime. In the early 1990s, for example, there was a IED bus attack against a group of Russian Jewish emigrants on the road leading out to the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport. There have been no major terrorist incidents since then, but airport security still takes its job very seriously.

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At the moment, there is no rail access to the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport, but plans are in place to extend the Budapest metro system to build municipal railways out to the airport perhaps as early as 2010 or possibly even within the next year. If built, the country's minister of economics says, the train from the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport would arrive in Budapest at the Keleti Railway Station.

There is also constant bus and mini bus service from the airport into the city. Busses leave every 10 or 20 minutes for the city center, providing easy and relatively cheap transportation to passengers deplaning at the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport and interested in seeing the city. Most of these buses are Volvo buses, equipped with special room for luggage to easily carry passengers and tourists along with their luggage into the city. Tickets on these buses often cost less than one euro, and run into the city center as well as the nearby M3 underground line train station, which provides easy transportation around Budapest and, from there, all of Hungary.

There are also the usual amenities including taxis and car rentals, so if you'd rather have a more personal form of transportation, you are more than welcome. Just take a look when you arrive in the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport and check for the taxi and rental signs, or ask directions from an airport employee.

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