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The airport of the Hungarian capital launched its social media website at the beginning of 2010 and is now the most popular and most visited Facebook page among European airports.
Two and a half year after its launch Budapest Airport’s Facebook page has reached 10 000 likes by the middle of June 2012. It is a unique achievement among European airports (based on passenger traffic), only a few Western European airports with tens of millions passengers forego Budapest. The popularity of Budapest Airport’s Facebook page exceeds when compared in the region. The second in line is Vienna with 30% behind. 80% of the Airport’s Facebook fans are from Hungary and half of those are from the capital.
However, the number of fans has only reached ten thousand a few days ago, this number is sufficient for delivering news and photos of Budapest Airport to tens of thousands of people week by week. The most popular topics are certainly the series of photos showing the life of the Airport, the photos and videos of particular aircrafts at the airport and also the latest airline offers. The management of social media requires immediate response from the marketing and communication team of the airport: the ‘lifecycle’ of news or a photo report is just a few hours. Changing needs have to be responded fast: Budapest Airport has redesigned its Facebook page twice in two years, following the users’ need and the latest web design trends.
The Facebook page is a very much searched information site at the same time. During the two significant airport events last year - in March the opening of SkyCourt and in October the landing of Lufthansa Airbus A380 - a record number of viewers were following the Web 2.0 website of Budapest Airport.
Airport operators discovered the possibilities offered by social media in the past few years. Not only commercial activities can be mastered with the help of Facebook but the page has an active role in keeping more personal contact with passengers. Social media can also be used for the recruitment of friends groups: the aficionados of aviation can get closer to the everyday life of the airport and aviation with the help of photos and reports.