This website is an archive from 2016

This site was actively maintained from 2006 to 2016. Since then I have kept it online for historical interest, but have made no further updates. Much of the information in these pages is now incorrect or obsolete.

No more Malev flights to the Balkans ... or anywhere else

03 February 2012

This morning the Hungarian airline Malév announced that it is to cease operations immediately.

This development will leave some large gaps in the air transport map of Southeast Europe, at least in the short term. Malév’s flights linked all the Balkan capital cities, and some smaller places as well, to Budapest and onwards to the global Oneworld network.

On a personal note I am sorry to see Malév’s Dublin-Budapest link disappear as I used it a number of times at the start or end of trips to the Balkans - on one occasion taking a connecting flight from Budapest on a tiny aircraft to the equally tiny airport at Targu Mures in Romania.

The news comes just a few days after the bankruptcy of Spanair. The collapse of the Barcelona-based airline is of much less relevance to the Balkans, but it does mean the loss of a route from Barcelona to Belgrade and of summer services to Croatia.