We caught Prime Minister Viktor Orbán red-handed boarding an oligarch’s private jet

We photographed PM Viktor Orbán boarding a private plane on a trip to Croatia, which was followed by a yacht cruise. The plane is tied to Mária Schmidt, a long-time Fidesz ally whose organizations regularly receive massive amounts of public funds. The Schmidt family company admitted that the plane belonged to them and suggested that Orbán and his entourage were just ordinary customers.

The neologism “luxizás” – that roughly translates into “luxury-ing” – entered the wider Hungarian vocabulary earlier this year to describe one of the main reasons of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party’s loss of popularity. Reportedly, Orbán and other Fidesz leaders told politicians and pro-government oligarchs such as Lőrinc Mészáros to tone down their luxurious lifestyles, such as the purchase of designer clothing, use of private planes and expensive yachts. This attempt of austerity was not always successful, as luxury scandals of leading government figures continued to be in the headline – the most recent one involving Orbán himself.

On August 22, opposition politician Péter Magyar posted photos of Viktor Orbán and some of his close associates aboard a yacht on the Adriatic. Magyar also claimed that Orbán used the official government plane (a part of the Hungarian air force) for the private vacation.

Source: Facebook/Péter Magyar

Not a military jet, but a private plane

Government sources denied the use of the military aircraft, which turned out to be true: we published photos of Orbán and his travelling mates boarding a private plane at the airport of Budaörs, Hungary one day before they were photographed on the yacht.

The boarding photos are a result of our long-running investigation into private planes utilized secretly by the governing elite in Hungary.

Browsing through the Hungarian photos on the aircraft spotting website Planespotters.net we noticed a propeller plane with Czech registration, whose details listed a Hungarian company, Harsánylejtő Kft., as its airline. Public company records showed that the company is managed by Anna Ungár, daughter of Mária Schmidt, and owned by Budapesti Ingatlan Hasznosítási és Fejlesztési Nyrt. (BIF).

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his companions board the private jet registered as OK-BIF at Budaörs Airport on August 21, 2025 – Photo: Átlátszó / Kornél Brassai

Mária Schmidt is a prominent member of the pro-Orbán elite, who was listed as the country’s 2^nd most influential woman by Forbes in 2022. Originally a historian, Schmidt became known as an Orbán-supporting public intellectual over two decades ago and was rewarded with valuable public procurement contracts.

Schmidt gained control over a large network of educational and research institutions and amassed a personal wealth of over 60 billion HUFs (150 million EUR). Her family’s assets include a mansion at the Adriatic coast where Orbán has vacationed previously.

Following the ownership network further, we also discovered that the ultimate owner of the company is Pióka Vagyonkezelő és Szolgáltató Kft.,

which is majority-owned by Mária Schmidt and minority-owned by her two children,

Anna Ungár and Péter Ungár (the latter is the leader of a nominally opposition party).

And then we ran into the prime minister

While checking the flight path, we noticed that the private plane was heading for Budapest from Rijeka and, contrary to its usual flight path, would be landing at the slammer Budaörs Airport on August 21 instead of the Budapest International Airport.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his companions board the private jet registered as OK-BIF at Budaörs Airport on August 21, 2025 – Photo: Átlátszó / Kornél Brassai

A few hours later, we visited the site, where we spotted armed bodyguards at the airport entrance and parking lot. From the public road next to the runway, we saw the parked plane and took some photos.

Suddenly, a convoy of black minibuses and an escort car pulled up next to the plane,

carrying Viktor Orbán, his communications expert Fanni Kaminsky, political director Balázs Orbán, and press secretary János Máté, some of whom were photographed at the Yacht near the Croatian island of Brač.

In the past, the small private plane has typically flown between Budapest and Rijeka, which leads us to conclude that it is primarily used by members of the Schmidt-Ungár family to fly to their vacation home in Opatija, Croatia, where Orbán was also a guest in 2023.

We do not know how Orbán traveled to the Ungár vacation home on this occasion, but last summer, on July 20, 2024, there was a flight that was eerily similar to the current one. At that time, the small plane flew from Rijeka to Budapest in the early morning hours, but exceptionally not to Budapest, but to Budaörs Airport. From there, as this time, it flew to the island of Brač, where it dropped off its passengers and then flew back to the Hungarian capital.

Details of the trip remain unclear

Later, government spokesman Gergely Gulyás claimed that while on vacation, Orbán was accompanied by his aides “for work reasons”, and that both Orbán and his colleagues paid for the trip from their own pockets. After the publishing of the yacht and plane photos, Orbán released a photo, supposedly showing the group working on something they called a “victory plan”.

Source: Facebook/Viktor Orbán

The news portal 444 asked Schmidt Mária’s company about the details and background of the trip. Such as, how much did they charge to charter the plane for this trip, did Orbán and his team receive any discounts, and how many times did the prime minister use the plane before. In the answer, the company attempted to distance itself from the trip and referred to the plane’s Czech operator.

“According to the operating agreement, the aircraft can be rented by anyone during its free periods, and therefore any person who uses it for purposes other than the business objectives of Harsánylejtő Kft. shall pay a fixed fee to the Czech company”

– their answer stated. Notably, they provided no concrete detail about Orbán’s trip, not disclosing the costs, possible discounts, or by whom the bill was footed.

The trip is especially embarrassing for the Prime Minister, who tries to distance himself from “luxury-ing”, and recently even posted photos of himself using budget airlines – not to mention the legal issues that could arise if it turned out that the Schmidt family, who made a fortune from government contracts, was giving discounts, transporting the group for free.