Foreign Minister Szijjártó sets new record of short-range flight with ultra long-range jet

Budapest and the Slovakian capital Bratislava are mere 161 kms apart. Few tourists in their right mind would book a flight for a trip between the two cities, yet Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó decided to use a state-owned ultra long-range jet to cover this distance.

On 6 March, a Hungarian delegation led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Péter Szijjártó held talks with Slovak Deputy Prime Minister Denisa Saková, as well as with Ákos Horony, the Slovak Government Commissioner for Minorities, and Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár in Bratislava. Photos of these meetings, as well as videos of a press conference and a visit to a church has been posted on Szijjártó’s social media pages later that day.

1.5 hours saved for tons of jet fuel

Flight data from ADS B-Exchange suggest that this short trip cost an unreasonable amount to taxpayers, as Szijjártó used the state-owned Falcon 7X ultra long-distance jet (registration number 606) to get to the neighbor’s capital. The jet officially belongs to the Hungarian Defence Forces, but it is used as a de-facto private plane by government members, and it’s flight path can regularly be observed, coinciding with announced foreign visits.

The flight of Falcon 606 on 6 March 2025 (photo: ADS B-Exchange)

According to his official social media profiles, the Foreign Minister had no other official programme to attend that day, meaning that the expenive transportation method was unnecessary. Using the military jet saved him about 1.5 hours as opposed to driving to Bratislava, at the cost of a lot more money and air pollution.

Railway would have also been a cheaper and relatively fast alternative – although the last time Szijjártó took a train, it was also closely followed by a private plane.

ADS B-Exchange’s archives show that the 606 jet flew back to Budapest shortly, arriving at 16:45 the same day it left, and after that, returned to it’s base at the military airport of Kecskemét. This suggest that when Szijjártó posted content of his stay in Bratislava, he was already back in Budapest. It is also clear that he had no more programs on his schedule that day.

No expenses spared

The Dassault Falcon 7X military is designed for extremely long trips: it can cover up to 11,000 kilometres on a single refuelling. This is why these jets are typically used for cross-continental journeys lasting several hours. Short-haul journeys are less cost-effective because of the high fuel consumption, and in the long-term many short-haul journeys also have an impact on aircraft maintenance needs and costs.

Despite the above, the Hungarian Foreign Minister still regularly travels to nearby destinations on official trips with long and ultra long-range aircraft, including military jets. Between 2021 and 2025, he departed from Hungary on 81 occasions by chartered or military aircraft, going on trips shorter than 300 kilometres, and returned in the same way.

This means that Szijjártó has made a total of 162 flights in the last 4 years that could have been made by car or train in a few hours. This is a high number, even if the journeys certainly include many that could only be made by plane due to the minister’s busy schedule.

Even in this case, smaller jets would have resulted in significant cost savings and lower emissions. However, a Flightradar.com database, made by Viktor Singer, listing Hungarian Foreign Minister’s flights since 2021 shows few such aircraft.

How not to treat your plane

The operating costs of higher class jets are more cost-effective for longer journeys. This is highlighted in a blog post on the aviation site aircraftexchange.com. The article points out that for short-haul journeys, the aircraft will spend a significant part of the journey in poor drag conditions, i.e. in take-off and landing phases and at altitudes that are not optimal for the aircraft.

This also has an impact on fuel consumption, as in many cases the aircraft will not reach the fuel-efficient cruising altitude or will only stay there for a short time.

Regular short-haul flights can also have a negative impact on the aircraft’s maintenance requirements.

Aircraft maintenance requirements are influenced not only by the number of hours of operation, but also by the number of flight cycles (take-offs and landings) and engine starts.

During frequent short trips, these cycles accumulate faster than the kilometres, so that the mandatory replacement or maintenance of certain parts may occur earlier or more frequently, which may entail additional and significant extra costs. This is most noticeable for state-owned defence aircraft, but also for private jets frequently leased to the Minister, as these costs are included in the rental of the special flights.

In addition, Szijjártó’s short-haul charter flights can be made more expensive by the fact that the minister does not charter a class of aircraft that is appropriate for the distance. In February 2025, for example, he travelled to Belgrade – 380 kilometres by car and 320 kilometres by air – on an ultra-long-range luxury jet that he uses to fly to New York, 7007 kilometres away.

Billions of forints wasted

We were curious to know what private jet categories and types are recommended by experts for short-haul flights, so we searched the internet. Unsurprisingly, we found a number of aircraft types that, both in terms of range and number of seats, could be a solution for short-haul official trips by ministers and their small delegations, which cannot be made by scheduled flights or other means of transport.

These aircraft – light jets, midsize and super midsize – cost only half or a third of the hourly rental cost of ultra long-range aircraft,

while offering a comfortable level of comfort for short journeys.

Domestic taxpayers would probably benefit most from the inclusion in the defence fleet of one or two aircraft in the smaller categories mentioned above, but it would be a major step forward in the use of public money to hire such aircraft for the Foreign Secretary’s shorter trips.

This would save the Hungarian budget billions of forints of public money per year just from Péter Szijjártó’s trips.