Another sad result of the failure of Fly Balaton. Local councils & trade groups should have insisted a deal was done with Ryan Air, or worked their butt off to secure an alternative operator. Fly Balaton's failure has put back the economic development of the region years. Tourist flights need somewhere to land.

Neither Loal Councils or government are good for anything.
FlyBalaton is another fiasco.
The airport itself is good. It is in a good location. There are plenty of passengers both in the UK and Germany to make it a viable proposition.
FlyBalaton emphasizes the need for Hungarians to wake up. Politicians and bureaucrats are useless. They need entrepeneurs that can run businesses successfully.
RyanAir in my opinion were partly responsible for the demise of FlyBalaton too.
I am sure if negotiations had been handled better this airport would still be up and running.
It is a catastrophe and all to redolent of the shameful inefficiency that spreads across Hungary
like a plague.

Wings@You are so right,except for one minor detail,FlyBalaton was wholly owned and operated by an Irish company :)
They fell out with RyanAir,and the local councils refused to put yet more financial support into the airport.

@ freqflyer- It was three/four split as far as control and the admin side of the airport went.
No matter now anyway becuase it is history.
Lessons learned: NONE.
Incompetent officials, greedy airline, local bureucracy and a complete failiure as far as understanding the "free market" by the locals. Draw up contingency plans if one airline pulls out, do research, have someone in charge that is going to give Hungary and the airport precedence.
This incompetence is not just at FlyBalaton but, unfortunately,it is the rule rather than the exception when doing business in Hungary.

Just to clarify on how Ryan Air works...
They are paid by the destination countries, cities, govt tourist boards to fly to a certain destination.
When they flew here to Balaton 3 times a week from London and also 2 German cities, close to 3,000 people a week arrived or departed with Ryan Air, money well spent by Hungary. Then someone or someones decided Ryan Air would come without giving them money..the money was redirected!!!! and Ryan Air said byebye...So nothing to do with two Irish companies arguing, local towns and business people poured money in, others mentioned in comments below took it out. Big loosers local small and medium business in the tourism sector..who would have happily subsidized Ryan Air flights..problem they were never asked...anyone wonder why????

@peter:

Yes, Ryanair's business behaviour is strange. Just found out that they are flying to London from two small airports in Svab country, only 50 km apart!:

Memmingen and Friedrichshafen, nice little towns, but no flights from Munic, Stuttgart, Frankfort or any other larger town in southern Germany . It really looks strange on their destination map.

Obviously financial aspects we don't know 100 % of.

Anyway I'd prefer any low cost airline to Ryan ...

Let's go on hoping!

The Danubius Hotels Group has leased the three-star Hotel Helikon in Keszthely
---
Not good at all, that probably means that the bartender in the bar to the right is out of work and he did the best Pina Colada in Hungary

Peter C. What you say is correct. Ryanair in the main get subsidies to fly to and from airports that other airlines are not particularly interested in because of geographical location.
Stansted in the UK and FlyBalaton at Sarmallék are examples of this perspective.
It is incredible to imagine in Hungary's case that local councils/tourist board should have to contribute.
The administrators of the airport are not to blame.
Serious questions must be asked as to how the hell can a fantastic airport like FlyBalaton
with lots of potential customers be languishing
in the breeze and threatened with imminent closure all the time.
Locasl council involvement/payments NO
Tourist Board Involvement marketing
Maverick Airlines like Ryanair NO.

REQUIRED:
Feasability study - passenger numbers, turnover,
destinations, marketing and research, prospective airlines, advertising, investment etc. etc.
A comprehensive report should be done and submitted to interested parties as to the great potential the airport presents and its importance to Lake Balaton in terms of jobs and tourism etc etc.

Suggestions on how, and where, we start????

A city to the north of us..called Bratislava, had exactly zero Ryan Air flights when Ryan Air left Klagenfurt, Austria in 2006 to start Balaton in 2007..Then Bratislava got 2, then 4, then 6, and if anyone wants to see today check out Ryan Air"s Slovakia website...22 destinations!!!!!
So to answer Wings question..why don"t we look and see what the Slovakian government, city of Bratislava, and tourism and hotel partners are doing right? Oh before anyone says well its beacause Sky Europe went down the tubes...Ryan Air
had alredy 12 destinations ...rightfuly so now they picked up extra routes from the SkyEurope demise.
By the way I fly in and out of Bratislava alot...few minutes drive and you are on the MI in Hungary!Look out for Zagreb, Croatia only 75 minutes from Fly Balaton..they have brought in a new CEO..no more protecting Croatian Air..and next month Norwegian, German Wings, and others all launch Zagreb flights!! Fly Balaton could survive on flights to Kiev, St.Petersburg, and Moscow..why no one does it beats me! Lots of planes available on the used plane market..its almost a no-brainer..Air Real Deal anyone??

peter c. OK. You talk some sense. And ask similar qustions to me.
The tourist board, local councils, etc tried in Hungary and failed with FlyBalaton. Maybe not their fault entirely.
I am talking about a professional attitude that should be shown toward the airport's renaissance.
Local councils and tourist boards can help. But they should not be expected to act as bonafide
business people in the deal. They perhaps can assist potential admininistrators and investors. That'a all they should be expected to do.
FlyBalaton has customers already (in numbers) to fly from Germany and the UK.
Marketing plan/feasability study. Get these done and present the findings to potential investors and airlines.
SIMPLE???? RIGHT????

I think the EU stopped direct subsidy of flights by Local Councils & suchlike as anti competitive. The old Ryan Air model has been dead for some time. What local council’s and tourist boards can do is promote destinations which will result in airline use. Low cost airlines make their best profits on the last few seats & the flights to Balaton were usually only two thirds full.

For those of us who know it, the Balaton is great. Most UK / London residents know nothing of the Balaton & little about Hungary. Carefully targeted marketing with only a limited spend on advertising could be done. Pity it wasn’t when Ryan Air were in place but we are where we are!

"Most UK / London residents know nothing of the Balaton & little about Hungary. Carefully targeted marketing with only a limited spend on advertising could be done. Pity it wasn’t when Ryan Air were in place but we are where we are!"
Yes, Jack, and I have told all the relative parties in Hungary that for the past two years.

I have spent my own time and money and also enlisted the help of UK marketing companies in order to promote Lake Balaton.
All in vain and to say it has been frustrating would be an understatement.
FlyBalaton is a great little airport and Lake Balaton is a fantastic tourist destination.
For FlyBalaton to fail speaks volumes about the current situation in Hungary.

Just heard the town of Sarmelek has won a European Union tender worth about HUF 150 million for the cleenup of the ex soviet airforce base which is today FlyBalaton airport. This work entails environment and toxic waste, along with destruction of some derelict buildingd. According to the mayor the work will commence this fall and terminate in 2011. This was always a pre-requisite to the airport being viable to any present or future investor. The airport website is up and running again and some tenants of the terminal in the past years are presently negotiating their 2010 leases.
Well its a start with April 1, Thursday receiving the first Danube Wings flight from Basel,Switzerland

@peter:

Thanks for the good news!

The timetable on the Flybalaton site though is still the old one from 2009 ...

@Wolfi...I know it about the timetable on the website....as far as I know it should change to 2010 shortly...first they are entering the dates for the drag races on the landing strip this summer!
mcuh more important than a schedule of flights!!!