After a three-and-a-half year hiatus, the weekly flight once again links the Hungarian capital with the fourth largest Russian city. Budapest Airport, the airline’s Hungarian representative Robinson Tours and the Hungarian National Tourism Organization welcomed the new flight, launched a week ago, with a ceremony this afternoon.

The passengers who landed in Budapest following a 4 hour 40 minute flight from Yekaterinburg were in for a great surprise. Budapest Airport welcomed the flight with the now traditional water cannon salute, and the disembarking passengers received small gifts. Alexei Fomin, quality director for Ural Airlines, also participated in the press conference held at Terminal 2.

A new gate has been opened towards the heart of Russia after Ural Airlines launched a new service between Yekaterinburg and Budapest on 3 October. The flight, which commutes once a week, provides connectivity to a destination which has been missing from Budapest Airport’s network for a long time; Malév was the last carrier to operate a scheduled flight on this route between 2007 and 2009. Ural Airlines now offers excellent connections from Hungary to numerous destinations in Russia and Southeast Asia by transfer in Yekaterinburg.

The city of Yekaterinburg is located along the Trans-Siberian railway line, on the border between Europe and Asia. It is one of the most important railway junctions in Russia, with 7 main lines running from its central railway station to the cities in the surrounding region (e.g. Perm, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen). Ural Airlines thus offers a fast and comfortable connection for the entire Sverdlovsk region to Budapest, and, by transfer, to the major Western European cities. The primary target group for the flight will therefore be business people traveling to Europe from the Sverdlovsk region and tourists flying to Hungary for recreation and recuperation.

“We are very happy to welcome Ural Airlines to Budapest,” said Kam Jandu, aviation director for Budapest Airport, during the press conference organized as part of the route launch ceremony. “We are certain that the flight will quickly become popular with passengers, since this region has long been missing from Budapest Airport’s route network,” he added.

Ural Airlines is based at Koltsovo International Airport, and operates direct flights to approximately 54 destinations, including Budapest. Its fleet consists solely of aircraft from the Airbus A320 family, after the carrier retired all of its older, Russian-manufactured aircraft in recent years. Its 15 A320-200 type aircraft, including the one operating to the Hungarian capital, offer 159 seats, including 15 business class seats. The company also has 9 larger, A321-200 type aircraft. In Hungary it is represented by the Robinson Tours travel agency.

Source: Budapest Airport