Despite the coronavirus pandemic restrictions, the Transylvania Airport in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș) has continued to operate by adapting to the given circumstances, said the director of the airport, András Peti, to szekelyhon.ro. While the Dortmund flight is still operating at the moment, the Budapest flight might only be able to restart at the end of May at the earliest.
According to plans, regular flights will start operating in April from Marosvásárhely to Egypt and in May, also to Turkey.
“Hopefully, these countries will not get into the yellow zone, and so it will be possible to travel to both Antalya and Gurdaka.”
– said András Peti.
The Marosvásárhely-London flight, which resumed at the beginning of the year only to be stopped and then restarted in February, is going to be suspended once again in March.
On the other hand, the Dortmund flight has continued to operate smoothly twice a week, on Friday and Sunday; this will be changed to Wednesday and Sunday starting at the end of this month. Travelers like this flight because many of them go to the Netherlands or Belgium from Dortmund, thanks to the good connections from Dortmund Airport to these countries, said the director.
Even though the Marosvásárhely-Budapest flight was originally planned to be resumed in March, this must be postponed. Because of the emergency situation announced in Hungary last week, the earliest the regular Budapest flight can restart will be at the end of May.
According to András Peti, even though the pandemic has affected traffic at the Marosvásárhely airport, it has not suffered as much of a financial loss as other nearby airports. While in the first quarter of 2020, Transylvania Airport saw a 40 percent growth in traffic compared to the same period of 2019, by the end of 2020, traffic had decreased by 50 percent compared to the previous year; in 2020, only 85,000 passengers arrived at the airport. But this year, a 20 percent traffic increase is expected on a year-over-year basis, while a further 40 percent increase is forecast for 2022 compared to 2021.
Title image: The Transylvania Airport in Marosvásárhely (Arhive photo: Vincze Haáz/szekelyhon.ro)
