Fidesz MP Csaba Dömötör, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister, posted a short video to his Facebook page about the recent reacquisition of the Ferenc Liszt International Airport by the Hungarian government.
In the video, MP Dömötör says:
‘It has been recently decided that the Budapest Airport will be in Hungarian ownership again. It is worth talking about what the significance of that is…The airport was privatized nearly 20 years ago, in 2005, in a rather wasteful manner, to put it mildly.
The institution was profitable back then already, generating about 10 billion HUF in profit annually, which has increased since. The income from the privatization was almost immediately used up by the leftist government at the time…The strategic significance of the Budapest airport is attested to by the fact that in the last 20 years, its traffic has tripled. It was at record levels before the pandemic, and now, it is approaching that level of traffic again. And what’s equally important is that since the runways have not reached maximum capacity yet, the passenger traffic can be further increased. It is also telling that
the airport can yield up to 30–35 billion HUF in dividends now, thus, it is not taking funds away from the government, rather, it generates revenue.’
Dömötör went on to point out that the acquisition deal has more than just financial benefits for the Hungarian people.
‘The foreign owners took a lot of money out of the business while the increasingly necessary developments were not done…The Ferenc Liszt Airport is not just a strategically important location, but for millions, it is the gate to our country as well.’
An 80 per cent stake in the Ferenc Liszt International Airport in Budapest was required by the Hungarian government in June 2024 for 1.2 trillion HUF ($3.35 billion). The remaining 20 per cent of shares are owned by Vinci Airports, a French airport developer company.
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