Key Takeaways
- Budapest is Hungary in the air. Budapest Ferenc Liszt International (BUD) serves around 142 regularly-served nonstop destinations — roughly 30 times the next airport. It is Hungary’s only true hub and handles the overwhelming majority of the country’s flights.
- One nonstop route to the US. American Airlines flies Budapest to Philadelphia nonstop on a Boeing 787 — daily through the summer 2026 season — the only scheduled nonstop link between Hungary and the United States. From anywhere else, a US trip means connecting.
- Wizz Air’s home base, no flag carrier. Hungary lost its flag carrier when Malév collapsed in 2012. Budapest reinvented itself around low-cost and network airlines — it is the headquarters and largest base of Hungarian carrier Wizz Air, and a major Ryanair base.
- Debrecen is the distant second. Debrecen (DEB), in the east, is Hungary’s only other airport with meaningful scheduled service — a small Wizz Air leisure base plus a Lufthansa feeder to Munich. Pécs-Pogány barely sees scheduled flights at all.
- Vienna fills the long-haul gap. For intercontinental routes Budapest can’t offer, western Hungary often turns to Vienna — Austria’s big hub, about a 2.5-hour drive away — with Bratislava a closer budget option near the north-west border.
Hungary packs a lot of history, spa towns and Danube scenery into a country of about 9.6 million people — but its commercial-aviation map is one of the most concentrated in Europe. Just three airports carry scheduled passenger service, and a single one of them handles almost all of the traffic.
That airport is Budapest Ferenc Liszt International (BUD), Hungary’s only true hub. After the national flag carrier Malév went bankrupt in 2012, Budapest reinvented itself around low-cost and network carriers — today it is the headquarters and biggest base of Hungarian airline Wizz Air, as well as a major Ryanair base. After Budapest comes Debrecen in the east, and then little Pécs-Pogány in the south. The map and table below rank Hungary’s airports by the number of destinations they serve with regular flights, drawing on live AirportRoutes route data.
Which Hungarian airports have direct flights to the US?
Just one. Budapest is the only airport in Hungary with a scheduled nonstop flight to the United States: American Airlines flies Budapest–Philadelphia on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, operating daily through the summer 2026 season (late May to early October). It is currently the sole nonstop link between Hungary and the US — and American is the only carrier offering it.
Earlier nonstop attempts came and went — LOT Polish Airlines flew Budapest–New York and Delta ran a seasonal Budapest–JFK service in the early 2020s — but neither stuck. For most of the year, and from anywhere outside Budapest, a trip to the US means connecting through a larger European hub such as Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, Paris or Istanbul.
RANKED BY DESTINATIONS
Hungary’s airports with scheduled service
By regularly-served nonstop destinations (live AirportRoutes data). Budapest utterly dominates; Debrecen is a small second and Pécs-Pogány barely registers.
| Airport | IATA | Serves | City / region |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Budapest Ferenc Liszt Intl | BUD | 142 | Budapest |
| 2. Debrecen | DEB | 5 | Debrecen / East Hungary |
| 3. Pécs-Pogány | PEV | 0 | Pécs / South Hungary |
A closer look at Hungary’s airports
✈️ Budapest Ferenc Liszt International (BUD)
Budapest Ferenc Liszt International, about 16 km south-east of the city centre, is Hungary’s flagship airport and the only one with a genuinely international network. Named after the composer Franz (Ferenc) Liszt, it set a passenger record of roughly 17.6 million travellers in 2024 and was bought back into majority Hungarian state ownership (alongside France’s Vinci Airports) the same year.
BUD reaches about 142 regularly-served nonstop destinations, including more than 40 intercontinental and long-haul routes — by far the widest network in the country. Frequent links include London, Istanbul, Frankfurt, Munich, Barcelona, Tel Aviv and the Spanish leisure markets, plus long-haul service to the Middle East, Asia and (seasonally) North America.
Main airlines: Wizz Air (which is headquartered in Budapest) and Ryanair dominate, alongside easyJet, Jet2, Eurowings and Lufthansa, plus a broad range of international carriers. See BUD’s full route map on AirportRoutes →
✈️ Debrecen (DEB)
Debrecen International serves Hungary’s second-largest city, in the Great Plain of eastern Hungary near the Romanian border. It is the country’s only other airport with regular scheduled passenger flights — a compact gateway that has grown steadily on the back of low-cost and leisure traffic.
DEB serves around 5 regularly-served destinations, a mix of city and sun routes such as London (Luton), Larnaca, Malta and Leipzig/Halle, plus a Lufthansa feeder to Munich that connects the region to the wider Lufthansa-group long-haul network.
Main airlines: Wizz Air, which bases aircraft here, and Lufthansa, alongside seasonal holiday-charter operators. See DEB’s full route map on AirportRoutes →
✈️ Pécs-Pogány (PEV)
Pécs-Pogány serves the historic city of Pécs in southern Hungary, close to the Croatian border. It is the smallest of Hungary’s three airports and, in practice, barely operates scheduled passenger service — in the AirportRoutes sample it recorded no regularly-served routes at all.
Over the years it has hosted only the occasional seasonal charter (typically to Greek islands such as Corfu) and general-aviation traffic. For nearly everyone in the region, the practical choice for a flight is Budapest, or — for those near the south-western border — Croatian airports such as Zagreb. See PEV’s full route map on AirportRoutes →
What about Vienna and Bratislava?
Because Hungary’s network funnels almost entirely through one airport, two foreign hubs do a quiet but real share of the country’s flying — especially for long-haul. Vienna International (VIE), in neighbouring Austria, sits about a 2.5-hour drive west of Budapest and far closer to Hungary’s north-western corner. As one of Central Europe’s big intercontinental gateways and the home of Austrian Airlines, it frequently wins western-Hungarian travellers heading to the US, Asia or the Middle East.
Bratislava Airport (BTS), in Slovakia, is closer still to the north-west of Hungary and works as a low-cost satellite, with Ryanair and Wizz Air fares that sometimes undercut Budapest. Between them, Vienna and Bratislava extend the practical airport map for anyone living in western Hungary — though for the bulk of the country, Budapest remains the obvious and usually cheapest choice.
Airport rankings, nonstop-destination counts, served cities, airline lists and US connections are drawn from live AirportRoutes route data (observed AeroAPI flight data — a sample, not a complete published schedule; we use the regularly-served figure, which filters one-off observations). Airport history and notable facts are cross-checked against the cited references. The maps are Mappr originals.
Primary Data Source:
- AirportRoutes — Major airports & routes, Hungary – Live route data: per-airport nonstop destinations, served cities, airlines and US connections.
References:
- Budapest Airport – Operator of Budapest Ferenc Liszt International, Hungary’s only major hub.
- Wizz Air – Hungarian low-cost carrier headquartered in Budapest, the airport’s largest operator.
- Wikipedia — Budapest, Debrecen & Pécs-Pogány airports – Airport background, passenger figures and operational history.
- Google Static Maps – Base maps for the per-airport locator images.
🌍 More maps & data for Hungary
Browse more: All airports by country
