Debrecen International Airport has been closed to repair damage to the runway caused by high temperatures. Hungary’s second-largest airport hub also announced last week that Wizz Air is relocating its sole aircraft from the airport, thus phasing out three destinations, a major blow to its future operation.

Repairs will take "at least a week", depending on weather conditions Temperatures around Debrecen reached the upper 30s Celsius on Thursday, when the announcement was made, but the situation worsened over the weekend.

Hungary’s state-owned weather service HungaroMet on July 12 has issued the highest-level red heat alert for 15 of the 23 counties in effect until Saturday midnight. The median daily temperature forecast was above 29 Celsius. Temperatures on Sunday hit a record 41 Celsius, and the heat wave will continue in the first days of the week.

The state acquired a 51% stake in the company operating Debrecen International Airport in early 2022, while the airport property and facilities remained in municipal ownership. Passenger numbers at the airport exceeded 600,000 in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

Traffic at Debrecen International Airport is expected to increase 10% this year after passing the 300,000 mark in 2023 for the first time since the pandemic, operators said.

But these targets could be in danger after Wizz Air announced last week to transfer its aircraft based at the airport to Budapest from October 27 to “consolidate its operations” at the Liszt Ferenc International Airport.

Wizz Air will continue to operate flights from the eastern Hungarian city to Burgas, Larnaca, London and Rome during summer, but the decision of the leading European no-frills carrier puts Debrecen Airport in a precarious situation. The profitable operation of the airport hangs in the balance, bne Intellinews was told by an aviation expert. Lufthansa is the other major carrier at Debrecen. In the summer season it hosts charter flights.

Debrecen, the political stronghold of the ruling Fidesz party, is seen as the alternative capital of the country. Hungary’s second-largest city by Romanian border has enjoyed headwinds in government and economic development policy and the city attracted more than €2bn in FDI in the past five years. This is set to climb over €10bn with the €7.3bn investment by the world’s leading EV battery maker CATL.

BMW is in the middle of the construction of a  €1bn plant, located close to the CATL factory. Once completed, Hungary will be one of the few countries globally where all three German premium carmakers, Audi, Daimler and BMW have a production facility.

©2024 bne IntelliNews , source Magazine