Travel

In the "good old days" there was a Hungarian airline called Malev. This airline had daily pretty good nonstop flights between New York and Budapest. Thanks to the total mismanagement by the Hungarian government and the airline's russian owners it was forced to go out of business in 2012. Now here is a country without its own airline. 

This is not something to be proud of. Every normal country in Europe has an official airline except Hungary. Shame on them. This makes travel to Hungary very complicated.

One would not realize that even though Budapest is a beautiful and cosmopolitan city with a major airport, but getting there from North America is a major hurdle. It seems that going to Kabul is a lot easier than finding good flights to Budapest Airport. 

Now that traveling is gradually easing up, we are trying to find ways for a short family visit but the available means are pretty uncomfortable. For one there are no direct flights. Other difficulties include either too long or too short wait times between flights at transfer points. There are also baggage limitations on most carriers. 

Some transfers are at extremely busy airports like London or Paris with insufficient time allowed. Amsterdam airport for one has some weird virus check requirement that makes going that way almost impossible. Prices like in everything else are high. Advertisements surface with unbelievable low prices but by the time we go through it the actual price is way too high. Yes, there are low cost flights but one has to be agreeable to wait about 32 hours for the connection without leaving the airport. Now, this is ridiculous. 

So, the search goes on.