HungaroControl: air traffic increased by about 10 percent in the first half of this year

Ákos Bárány said that in the first six months of 2025, air traffic controllers handled 550,000 flights, but the busiest period is traditionally the end of July and the beginning of August, when most people go on vacation.

As he put it, “we previously set record numbers with four thousand aircraft, this has now become commonplace, so my colleagues are now ensuring the safety of 4,000 flights on a daily basis.”

He noted that the summer traffic figures of previous years are now typical in winter. Air traffic is growing much more dynamically than the entire industry can keep up with, but they are doing everything they can to meet this trend – he emphasized.

Ákos Bárány indicated that they can effectively manage the increasing burdens and this year’s record traffic with the help of experienced foreign air traffic controllers, but at the same time they have also intensified their recruitment campaign, which may be a long-term solution, because training an air traffic controller takes several years.

They want to increase the number of air traffic controllers by 50 percent by 2029, so they are currently very actively recruiting, and they are also making constant technological developments, for example, they handed over the remote tower control center in the spring, so airport air traffic will be controlled from a high-tech room – he explained.

Regarding flight delays, he emphasized that he cannot report any significant, trend-like flight delays, although most of the summer is still left. He noted that in such cases, communication with passengers falls within the scope of Budapest Airport’s activities.