Wednesday, December 19th, 2007. Malév Hungarian Airlines has announced its decision to end its three times weekly service from Budapest to Cork with effect from January 14th next. The Hungarian airline cited its need to optimise use of short haul aircraft on shorter Eastern European sectors from its Budapest hub. The Budapest-Cork sector is the longest sector the airline flies on its European network at present.
Malév Hungarian Airlines has operated a service from Cork to the Hungarian capital since 2005. This year over 26,000 customers have used the service and load factors (the percentage of seats occupied on each flight) were in excess of 75% on average with particularly strong loads in excess of 90% during the peak summer months and flights are fully booked for the forthcoming Christmas and New Year holidays.
Kevin Cullinane, Marketing Manager, Cork Airport said: “Cork Airport regrets Malév’s commercial decision to optimise their aircraft on shorter, more frequent routes in Eastern Europe and Russia. Malév was good for Cork over the past 2½ years and I’d like to think Cork was good for Malév in terms of their network development across Europe. We are fortunate to have excellent connectivity into other major hubs such as London’s Heathrow, Amsterdam’s Schiphol and Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airports from Cork Airport, as well as a four times weekly service to Prague with Aer Lingus and a four times weekly service to Bratislava (Vienna) with SkyEurope. We will continue to explore additional Central and Eastern Europe destinations with our nine other Airline partners at Cork Airport into the New Year.”
Geraldine Aherne, Country Manager for Malév Hungarian Airlines, said
“Malév enjoyed an excellent relationship with Cork Airport Authority and local
companies and I would like to thank the travel agents and passengers who
supported the route over the last two and a half years. I hope our
partners will continue to support Malév by availing of the daily direct service
that operates from Dublin”.
Ms. Aherne advised that “Passengers affected by the cancellation should contact their local travel agent or Malév Hungarian Airlines directly on 0818 55 55 77 for assistance with re-booking already issued tickets”.
-ENDS-
