BUD Airport sees record cargo traffic numbers in Oct.

Budapest Airport (BUD)’s October traffic results show that the airport is an increasingly popular hub for air cargo. During the month, it processed 13,313 tonnes of freight, a 23 percent increase, year-over-year, making it the largest traffic figure ever recorded at the hub during October.

“As of today, our figures for 2018 have already overtaken the entire year of 2017, when we processed 127,145 tonnes of airfreight at BUD, which was our highest yearly amount on record,” said René Droese, executive director of property and cargo at Budapest Airport.

Zooming out to look at 2018’s total so far, BUD saw a 16 percent total increase, y-o-y, processing 120,603 tonnes at the hub during the 10-month period between January and October.

“This growth proves how vital our new Cargo City development will be in order to continue coping with increased demand from carriers around the world,” Droese continued, referring to the cargo-centric project within the airport’s “BUD:2020 Development Program.” The goal of the plan is to transform BUD into the leading gateway in the Central Eastern European region, and to compete with more well-known cargo hubs, such as Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS).

Over the past year, the airport has seen new forwarders and airlines commence operations onsite, including Kuehne + Nagel, AirBridgeCargo and Silk Way West Airlines.

Construction on Cargo City has been underway since September 2018 and is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2019.