Our reporting forces Foreign Minister to suspend private jet trips on taxpayers’ money

After exposing the Foreign Minister’s private jet trips and their costs, governing party Fidesz has responded by amending the law, allowing the minister to hide data on his foreign travels. After a court ruled that despite the new law, the cost of his trips are still public information, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has been eschewing the use of chartered private planes, opting to use the Hungarian Defense Forces’ aircraft.

Péter Szijjártó, a long-time passenger of luxury private planes, has shown an uncharacteristic restraint in the last two month, picking the Hungarian Defense Forces’ fleet of business jets for his last 36 official trips abroad. In the past, he would use various private luxury planes for such rides – this and the trip’s prices were regularly reported on by Átlátszó.

After month of news on Szijjártó’s expensive flights, the powers that be, seem to have not only amended the law to conceal previous expenditure data before the upcoming parliamentary elections, but also seem to no longer wish to provide the press with similar information.

As to the reasons for the suspension of the private jet trips and whether they have anything to do with the first instance court ruling, we asked the press department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but they did not respond to our inquiry within the 48-hour timeframe we gave them.

On 21 March – the day after the publication of the above-mentioned court ruling – Péter Szijjártó continued his diplomatic activities and official trips abroad. In the last two months, the Minister visited Ankara, Moscow, Belgrade twice, Brussels, Luxembourg three times, London, Cairo, Antalya twice, Linköping, Islamabad, Amman, Bern, Warsaw, Yerevan and Jerusalem. Following Szijjártó’s official social media posts, we discovered a fundamental change from previous trip reports.

In the past, the foreign minister’s communications team often did not include the aircraft used for the trip in photos taken at the airport.

This suggested that the minister was being flown in a private chartered aircraft, a fact that he wished to hide.

However, in the last two months, his photosets show the aircraft – the Hungarian Defense Forces’ Dassault Falcon 7Xs – he used for the trip.

Not sensitive data

Data from ADS-B Exchange clearly shows that Szijjártó has not used a private aircraft for his official trips since 20 March 2025. On the same day,

the Metropolitan Court of Budapest ruled against the ministry in the first instance in a freedom of information request lawsuit Átlátszó.

According to the judgement, the new law – which was written supposedly to conceal sensitive information that could put officials at risk of violent threats – does not allow the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to hide the cost of the minister’s past trips.

Of the four military aircraft, which are often deployed for diplomatic missions, Szijjártó has mostly used Dassault Falcon 7X 606 and 607, which are long-range business jets.

Until now, the Foreign Minister has only rarely travelled with Airbus A319-112s, registered 604 or 605, which can carry up to 140 passengers, mainly for diplomatic meetings abroad involving large delegations or because of the military nature of the courier aircraft.

No more luxury

These aircraft have fewer comfortable seats with large legroom than the courier aircraft, and only the first few rows are 2-2, i.e. first-class comfort. Behind them, the other rows of seats are 3-3, meaning that 6 people can sit in a row, just like on a similarly sized passenger aircraft.

In a departure from his previous habits, the Foreign Minister has made most of his last 36 trips on these jets: he flew 15 times on the large-capacity 605 and 11 times on the 140-seat 604.

He has flown fewer times in the less spacious but more comfortable courier aircraft: seven times in the 606 and four times in the 607 Falcon.

These jets are aircraft with high comfort levels, making for a comfortable journey even on cross-continental flights. In night flight mode, several berths can be provided for passengers to make longer, overnight flights more comfortable.