Economy 12 July 2024, 3:18pm

Hungarian ministry sends tough message to airlines

Portfolio

There must be consequences for the way [air] passengers are treated, Hungary's Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said in a statement sent to state-run newswire MTI on Friday.

It is outrageous and unacceptable that passengers are treated insensitively, almost like luggage,

the statement says, adding that Minister of Justice Bence Tuzson has instructed the investigating authorities to take the strictest possible action in cases of serious delinquency.

"It is not acceptable that in some cases service providers fail to meet the human minimum and treat passengers without emotion, almost like luggage. I have instructed our consumer protection investigators to be as rigorous as possible in dealing with these cases. Families who have worked all year so that they can go on holiday with their savings do not deserve this," the minister was quoted as saying.

They said that if consumer protection authorities find an infringement, they can impose fines ranging from HUF 1 million to 5% of the company's net turnover, up to HUF 650 million, on businesses that are not SMEs in the case of serious infringements.

There are currently 13 regulatory inspections pending against 5 airlines.

These are

Eurowings,
Ryanair,
Sun Express,
Tailwind Airlines and
Wizz Air.

Fining airlines does no always work for the Hungarian government, though.

On 4 June 2022, Ryanair informed its passengers that it would pass on the full cost of a new air traffic tax ("departure tax") introduced in Hungary to passengers. This meant that ticket prices increased by €10 (HUF 3,900) per passenger and passengers could choose to cancel their existing booking and receive a full refund or pay the extra charge.

The airline was fined in August 2022, and last year theoriginal fine of €736,000 (about HUF 300 million) was annulled by the Metropolitan Court (a move later ruled justified by the Supreme Court).

Ryanair claimed that the Hungarian government had imposed an “excess profits” tax on the airline industry despite the fact that the airlines in Hungary were still reporting record losses, not “excess profits”, Ryanairsaid in August. We can expect excessive fines to be contested in the current case too.

As part of the inspection, the Consumer Protection Authority (CPA) will request information and data from the airlines on the delays and cancellations under investigation. This data is currently being provided, they said.

In the last few days, there has been an increase in reports of flight delays. There are expert opinions that the lack of air traffic control capacity is the cause of many disruptions, i.e. they are short-staffed.

HungaroControl, which coordinates Hungarian airspace, has also been implicated, as it is alleged that the conditions at the service are inadequate and that there is a serious staff shortage. Gulyás said that they had already increased the number of staff in the past, but this had not sufficiently solved the problems.

Local news portal HVG reached an anonymous source with knowledge of the industry who backed up the reasons given for the problematic situation by actual figures.

He said that up to 4,000 aircraft a day could pass over Hungary in July. To put this into context, HungaroControl says on its website that Hungarian air traffic controllers control an average of 600,000 flights a year, with a plane entering Hungarian airspace every 30-40 seconds during busy periods, averaging 1,700 flights a day. The record was 3,527 aircraft in one day.

The domestic airspace is divided into a total of eight sectors, which means that 12 to 16 planes can pass through a sector at any one time, and 40 to 60 per hour.

HOWEVER, DUE TO CONGESTION, HUNGAROCONTROL MAY ONLY BE ABLE TO KEEP SIX SECTORS OPEN INSTEAD OF EIGHT.

HungaroControl says that in addition to the significant capacity expansions by airlines, the airspace closure due to the Russian-Ukrainian war has played a major role in this extreme increase.

The problematic situation is well illustrated by the fact that the current volume is 25-30% higher than before the coronavirus pandemic, while the number of staff has increased from 179 to 185 (+3.4%) in the same period.

The problem has not escaped the attention of the Hungarian government, so they have been working on a possible solution. The Ministry of Defence suggested that staff shortage could be solved with voluntary reserve soldiers.

A draft ministerial decree on the idea was adopted in May, according to which, following the amendment, volunteer reserve air traffic controllers would be considered as professional staff, including volunteer reserve tower controllers, approach controllers, and area controllers, as well as volunteer reserve trainee air traffic controllers.

It is no coincidence that the Economy Minister Márton Nagy, has summoned the head of HungaroControl, urging immediate action and a targeted action plan to tackle the problems in air transport.

Referring to the rampant flight delays, Nagy told a press conference on Tuesday that the congestion in the airspace is due to high altitude transits. En route charges in Hungary are low, so many people choose it, while the war and tourism have generated a level of airspace use that was a surprise. (Note that Hungarian airspace has seen more traffic and almost daily regulations due to the unavailability of Ukraine airspace.)

This is an air traffic management issue, not an airport issue. The expansion of HungaroControl will not happen overnight. There will be serious steps, HungaroControl will be handed over on 1 August, significant changes will have to be made, and the use of airspace does not have to be so cheap, said Márton Nagy.