The foreign minister posted about train travel in the US, but was followed diligently by the luxury jet he chartered

Hungarian foreign affairs minister and Russian Order of Friendship medal recipient Péter Szijjártó loves to post photos of himself on social media, humbly riding trains to official visits, like he did in his recent trip to the United States. He however, neglected to mention the private luxury plane following him around, eventually taking him back to Budapest.

On paper, Hungarian law requires ministers to save costs by using scheduled flights for official trips. However, the law gives an exemption where they can use private charter planes if their work schedule is incompatible with commercial flights. This exemption is regularly used by Péter Szijjártó, who often requests private luxury flights.

A favorite jet rental of Hungarian elites

For his trip to the US in February this year, the Foreign Minister used a luxury jet, which he has flown in several times between 2017 and 2020.

The Gulfstream G-V private jet, registered in Austria with the identification code OE-IIS has 16 seats and can carry passengers up to 12,000 km at cruising speeds of around 900 km/h. The interior layout of the aircraft’s deck is variable, allowing the private jet to accommodate up to 6 people on board for sleeping and sleeping.

The aircraft is operated by the Austrian company International Jet Management GmbH (IJM), which was previously the operator of the private aircraft carrying oligarch Lőrinc Mészáros and PM Viktor Orbán. The owner of IJM is also a majority owner of Avconjet, which also operates private luxury jets “stationed” in Budapest connected to Mészáros.

According to ADSB-Exchange, the OE-IIS private jet used by the Foreign Minister taxied over from Budapest Airport to the control tower just after 22:00 on 17 February. There it waited for nearly an hour and took off just before midnight with the Hungarian Foreign Minister and his delegation on board. The private plane landed in New York in the early hours of 18 February after a journey of almost 9 hours.

Az OE-IIS útja 2025. február 18-án (forrás: ADS-B Exchange)

Train to Washington, private jet following close behind

As usual, Szijjártó posted on social media before the US meeting, showing off his austere routine: he started his day with an early morning run in New York, after which he met the Chinese Foreign Minister and attended the UN Security Council meeting. He then signed an agreement with the US aerospace company Voyager Technologies, held talks with the head of the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre and met with diplomats from Uganda and Pakistan.

The next day, at dawn on 19 February, Mr Szijjártó boarded a train for the 3.5-hour journey from New York to Washington. He took care to mention in his social media postst that he used a train due to the fact that “there were no flights between New York and Washington”, and because he “comes from a family of railway workers and had always loved trains.”

The “no planes” part is not exactly true.

We were curious to find out what the luxury chartered plane carrying Szijjártó to America was doing while he was on his train, so we checked its route details. Much to our surprise, they showed that on the same day, early afternoon of 19 February

the private plane also left New York and flew to Washington, following Szijjártó, who claimed to be modestly train-bound.

As the private plane followed the same route as the Foreign Minister, we asked questions to the Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade about Szijjártó’s train trip and why, but received no reply.

The OE-IIS journey on 19 February 2025. (Source: ADS-B Exchange)

Szijjártó left Washington on 20 February, after the end of his official programmes, on board a private jet carrying him to the US, and arrived in Budapest in the early hours of 21 February, where the private jet dropped off its passengers at the Government House.

The OE-IIS departed for Budapest on 20 February 2025 (source: ADS-B Exchange)

A real air hotel

The ultra-long-range OE-IIS luxury aircraft used for the US visit is designed for long cross-continental journeys of many hours. That’s why private jets in this category also provide their passengers with lie-flat beds, among many other extras. Photos of the inside of the OE-IIS can be seen here.

The extra services and high comfort levels make aircraft like the OE-IIS very expensive to charter: for a long diplomatic tour of several days or several destinations

travel costs can exceed 100 or even 200 million forints.

Based on the travel costs of Szijjártó’s previous trips to New York, the February trip to the US is also in the order of 100 million forints. The Foreign Minister’s trip to the US at the beginning of March, on which he also travelled aboard an OE-IIS-registered luxury jet, could have cost a similar amount.

He also flew to Belgrade in February on the same plane

However, according to the aircraft’s route data, Peter Szijjártó rented the long-range, highly equipped and comfortable OE-IIS private jet not only for intercontinental trips, but also for a much shorter journey.

The private jet, marked OE-IIS, arrived in Budapest from Prague on 13 February and then flew to Belgrade, 380 km away, presumably also with the Hungarian Foreign Minister on board. In the Serbian capital, Szijjártó held talks with Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric, Minister of Mines and Energy Dubravka Dedovic and representatives of the pro-Fides party Vojvodina Hungarian Alliance (VMSZ).

Even though for shorter distances, there is no justification for using such a high-end aircraft,

as the rental costs can be several times higher than for shorter-range aircraft on the market.

As explained in an earlier article, the cost of private jets on the same route can vary by orders of magnitude, depending on the type of operator and aircraft type chosen. In other words, if you are travelling by chartered aircraft, you could save millions of euros just by choosing the right class and type of aircraft for the distance.