Budapest Airport’s Runway II will be closed for two months as part of a one billion HUF (€4 million) development project.
Runway end 13L on runway II of Budapest Airport will be equipped with a new, much more modern and reliable instrument landing system (ILS).
Due to the development, single runway operation is expected to last until the middle of June, i.e. by the summer peak season, Budapest Airport will once again operate with two runways.
The new ILS (Instrument Landing System) will comply with the strictest international regulations, which in practice means that it will be possible for aircraft to land and take off when visibility is just 15 meters vertically and 50 meters horizontally, even in thick fog, rain, snow and darkness.
Budapest Airport will thus comply with the requirements of CAT IIIB instrument approach, whereby flights can arrive in and depart from Budapest even under the above parameters – i.e. aviation safety will increase.
The installation and commissioning of the new system requires a closure of approximately 8 weeks on runway II. During this period, not only the new system will be installed, but a whole host of other maintenance and repair works will also take place, which can only be carried out when the runway is closed.
These include replacing the lighting fixtures in the concrete and on the edge of the runway, repairing minor faults in the concrete, completing the replacement of the material filling the dilatation joints with more modern, artificial resin, replacing 121 concrete water drainage shafts next to the runway and refurbishing electric cables. The complete cost of the renovation reaches 1.3 billion HUF, which is just over 4 million EUR.
“We are doing everything we can to complete the installation of the instrument landing system as quickly and at the highest quality possible, in compliance with the requirements of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Hungarian aviation and airport authority,” said László Eiszrich, head of the corporate unit technical at Budapest Airport.
He added: “Aviation safety will increase at Budapest Airport, as all approach directions will be equipped with state-of-the-art instrument landing systems, once the current development program, begun in 2015, concludes.”
Due to the closure of runway II, only the three kilometre-long runway I will be in use at Budapest Airport, for two months. This does not result in any changes concerning traffic towards the districts of Budapest, but aviation traffic will temporarily increase over Vecsés.
