BUD Welcomes the EU Presidency

If, based on my earlier writings, my esteemed readers have come to the conclusion that I am a grumpy old man, I am afraid I will have to largely agree with them. But believe me I would love to talk also about the nice things in the life of Ferihegy Tower, except that there are far fewer nice things than those that make one mad. So, I will now write about a good thing, then another thing that might be good and, to be true to form, about something strange.

As you probably know, since 1 January 2011 Hungary is fulfilling the rotating role of EU Presidency, a honor bestowed for six months. This circumstance meant lots of delegations, state aircraft and other VIPs coming and going during the six month period. Already last fall the doomsayers were crowing about how everything at the airport will sink into chaos, how it will be impossible to get to the airport, whether as a passenger or someone working there. Things however have turned out to be very different. Even we were surprised how efficiently the VIP movements were being handled both inside and outside the airport. I am not sure who came up with the excellent idea of moving most of the meetings to Godollo, a town just a few miles outside of Budapest. This meant that most delegations leaving the airport headed towards the M0 ring-road instead of towards downtown Budapest driving to Godollo on M0 which, on that stretch anyway, has plenty of capacity to handle such things. With this arrangement the increased diplomatic activity went almost unnoticed and Budapest was able to carry on with its already hectic life that was not made even more hectic by the road closures usually accompanying the movement of VIPs.

The real surprise however was how little impact this pumped up activity had on our work in the tower. The stands for the VIP aircraft had been allocated early on and so those flights could move in and out from the farthest stands of Terminal 2A unhindered while not creating a blocking factor for the other traffic either. We only had one extra chore and that was giving the airport supervisor sufficient time to run down the runway, a check he is obliged to make before every VIP flight. The proper moment was coordinated with Approach Control and Stevie, our airport supervisor friend could be on his way to discharge his duty. As I said, all that VIP traffic resulted in practically no extra workload, fitting them into the normal daily run of traffic was a breeze. At the same time passengers arriving at Ferihegy were not left in any doubt about where they have arrived. The tower was decorated by a huge poster proclaiming “BUD welcomes the EU Presidency”.
What is the “may be good” story? Well, this is something completely new, it has never before come to pass in the 28 year history of the tower: sine 15 May we have a female section chief. My ‘may be good” caveat is there since we are not yet sure what will evolve from this… But why should she not become a good boss? We should give her the benefit of the doubt and then we will see what she makes of it. There can be no reservations about her professional competence, she had participated in several “projects”, she has helped in updating the regulations and the tower manual… we should be really pleased that at long last once again we have a boss who is from the profession rather than being a bureaucrat. I have even swallowed the fact that for this post they did not specify as a requirement a proficiency test score of 95 % as they did for the supervisor and deputy supervisor posts. To become section chief it was almost enough to have a Category B driver’s license since the other requirements were such that only the cleaning lady would have failed to qualify… Back then I was giving serious consideration to applying for the section boss post if I failed to reach 95 %… but I got exactly 95 so that was that. Come to think of it, did she have any competition? But never mind, we will find out soon enough when somebody turns up for work with a sour face.
Finally the strange bit. Our government in place for a year now has launched on a path of reforms as they understand the word and one of the victims is none other than Ferihegy itself. The cause of the mishap is poor Liszt Ferenc who was borne 200 years ago and the whole year is dedicated to his memory. Of course while I have every respect for Liszt Ferenc, I have to mention another Ferenc, the one from whom Ferihegy got its name in the first place. Mayerffy Ferenc lived in this area in the 19th century as a vine grower. He was growing vine stems for sale and was also busy creating new vine sorts. That Hungary today is known as a place with fine wines is in part his merit. The area was named in his honor and this leads me to believe that he must have been a well respected, loveable Hungarian person, what with such a big area getting his name! I am quite sure that Mayerffy had no connection what so ever with the events of the 20th century, but still the current government (claiming to be “national”) stripped the airport of Mayerffy’s memory, renaming it Liszt Ferenc International Airport.
I repeat, I have no problem with Liszt Ference, I like his music, I often walk on Liszt Ferenc Square, pass by the Liszt Ferenc Music University but I have no idea what poor Liszt had to do with aviation? At best he may have seen Leonardo’s plans… Why was he more “Hungarian” than Mayerffy Ferenc? I do not think he was more Hungarian if for no other reason because Liszt spent very little time in Hungary while uncle Mayerffy was tending his vines on Hungarian soil all the time.
I just do not understand this. Those over zealous reformists did not think about the fact that both men bore the first name “Ferenc” and that his could have been the perfect opening to introduce the only logical name, a much simpler way, the one that came to mind for all sober thinking pilots and controllers: long live Liszt Ferihegy!