Airport operator starts to plan "life after Malev"

Budapest Airport has started reworking its plans for 2012 in light of the shutdown of national carrier Malev.

Budapest Airport said other airlines had quickly taken over Malev's capacity, some as soon as Friday, when the troubled carrier's flights were grounded. It added that Wizz Air, Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France, KLM, Brussels Airlines and Norwegian were boosting capacity at the airport and that Air Berlin, Germany's second-biggest airline, had started a daily Budapest flight.

Budapest Airport, a unit of Germany's Hochtief, said earlier it expected passenger numbers in Budapest to reach 9.2 million this year, 300,000 more than in 2011.

Hungarian authorities can do a lot to help fill the space Malev left as quickly as possible, for instance by dealing with bilateral contracts which allow only one airline -- Malev on Hungary's side -- to operate flights. Such contracts exist with Turkey, Israel, Russia and Ukraine, the statement said.