Malév Hungarian Airlines

If you stand at Budapest Airport today, you mostly see the pink and purple of Wizz Air. Until 2012 it was different: back then Ferihegy belonged to Malév, the Hungarian flag carrier with the accent in its name. For 66 years it flew under changing circumstances – first with Soviet propeller aircraft and Tupolevs, later with Boeing 737s and 767s all the way to New York. This page sums up how Malév came about, which aircraft it flew, why it ended so abruptly and where you can still find its traces today.

Malév at a glance

Malév was Hungary’s national airline and flew from 1946 to 2012. Its headquarters and only hub were in Budapest, at Ferihegy Airport, which is now called Budapest Liszt Ferenc. The name is an abbreviation of Magyar Légiközlekedési Vállalat, loosely translated “Hungarian Air Transport Company.”

Hardly any European airline lived through as many political upheavals. Malév began as a Hungarian-Soviet joint venture, flew for decades with aircraft from the Soviet Union and opened up to the West from the late 1980s. In the 2000s came privatization, Russian investors, the return to the state and finally joining the alliance oneworld. In the end came a ruling by the European Commission on unlawful state aid – and on February 3, 2012 the sudden collapse.

At the end Malév employed about 2,600 people and carried around 3.2 million passengers in 2011. Its route network covered more than 50 cities in 34 countries.

The history in stages

Malév’s roots lie in the postwar period. On March 29, 1946 Maszovlet came into being as a joint venture of Hungary and the Soviet Union. The first aircraft were Lisunov Li-2s, a Soviet license-built DC-3, plus small Po-2s used for airmail, among other things. In 1950 operations moved to the new Ferihegy Airport, which remained the airline’s home for the next six decades.

With Hungary’s takeover of the Soviet shares in 1954, Malév became a purely Hungarian state airline. In the following decades its network grew mainly toward the other Eastern Bloc capitals, but also to Western Europe and the Middle East. In this period Malév was part of a whole family of state airlines from Eastern Europe – comparable to ČSA in Prague, LOT in Warsaw, Balkan in Sofia or Interflug in East Germany.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code MA: appeared in the flight number, on tickets and departure boards.
• ICAO code MAH: used by air traffic control in the flight plan.
• Callsign MALEV: this is how the crews identified themselves on the radio.

The registration prefix of the Malév fleet was the Hungarian HA-. Many airliners carried registrations in series from which experienced spotters could almost read the type – for example HA-LCG on the Tu-154 in the Aeropark or HA-MOA on an Il-18. How country prefixes work in general is explained in the article on country identifiers on aircraft.

The fleet: from Tupolev to Boeing

Malév’s fleet history is a small journey through 20th-century airliner building. Until the end of the 1980s almost all aircraft came from the Soviet Union, after which Boeing gradually dominated.

The Soviet era

After the Li-2 and Il-14, from 1960 came the Ilyushin Il-18, a four-engine turboprop that stayed in service until 1989. In 1968 the jet age began with the Tupolev Tu-134; a total of 14 examples flew for Malév until 1998. The best-known aircraft of this era, however, is the Tupolev Tu-154: the trijet with its engines at the tail was the backbone of medium-haul from the 1970s on. Malév operated 18 of them, the last left in 2001 – leaving the airline free of Soviet-built aircraft after some 55 years. The fleet was at times supplemented by the small Yakovlev Yak-40.

Anyone who wants to dig deeper into this aircraft family will find the background in the article on Soviet airliners and at the manufacturer Tupolev.

The step toward the West

On November 18, 1988 the first Boeing 737-200 arrived in Budapest. Malév was thus among the first airlines in the then Eastern Bloc to operate a Western airliner. In the 1990s the 737-300 and 737-400 followed, Boeing 767-200ERs and 767-300ERs were added for long-haul, and from 1995 the Fokker 70 for smaller routes. Later the Bombardier CRJ200 and Dash 8 Q400 supplemented regional traffic.

From 2003 Malév swapped the older 737s for the Next Generation. In the end it flew a manageable, modern fleet with an average age of about eight years:

Type	Period at Malév	Use	Spotter note
Ilyushin Il-18	1960–1989	Medium-haul, later cargo	Four turboprop engines, today in the Aeropark
Tupolev Tu-134	1968–1998	Short- and medium-haul	First jet, glazed nose
Tupolev Tu-154	1970s–2001	Medium-haul	Three tail engines, T-tail
Boeing 737-200	from 1988	Short- and medium-haul	First Western type
Boeing 767-300ER	1992–2008	Long-haul	Flew to New York and Toronto
Boeing 767-200ER	1993–2009	Long-haul	Shorter fuselage than the -300ER
Fokker 70	1995–2010	Short-haul	Tail engines, slim fuselage
Boeing 737-600	until 2012	Short-haul	6 aircraft, shortest NG
Boeing 737-700	until 2012	Short- and medium-haul	7 aircraft, largest group at the end
Boeing 737-800	until 2012	Medium-haul	5 aircraft
Dash 8 Q400	until 2012	Regional traffic	4 aircraft, one of them in retro colors

In 2009 Malév also signed a letter of intent for 15 Sukhoi Superjet 100s. The order was put on hold in 2011 – the Superjet never flew for Malév.

The many 737 generations make Malév photos a good exercise. Whether you have a 737-200, a Classic or a Next Generation in front of you, you can tell by engines, fuselage length and wing tips – explained step by step in the guide to the generations of the Boeing 737. For the long-haul jets, Telling the Boeing 757 and 767 apart helps.

Across the Atlantic with the 767

A highlight of Malév’s history was long-haul. From the early 1990s the airline connected Budapest with New York JFK and Toronto. For Hungarian emigrants and their families this was an important bridge, and for spotters in Budapest a reason to wait for the big twinjets. Boeing 767s in the -200ER and -300ER versions were used.

Economically, long-haul remained difficult. In November 2007 the flights to North America were suspended, and in July 2008 they were finally cancelled. The 767s then left the fleet. From then on Malév was a pure short- and medium-haul airline focused on Europe and the Middle East.

Owners, oneworld and the end

The last two decades of Malév were marked by changing owners. In the 1990s Alitalia took a 30 percent stake, and later the airline was again almost entirely in the hands of the state privatization agency. In 2007 the investor group AirBridge took over nearly all shares; in 2009 the Russian state bank Vnesheconombank took a stake in AirBridge, and Aeroflot gained influence over the management. In February 2010 the Hungarian state brought the airline back with a capital increase and then held 95 percent.

In the middle of this phase fell the joining of oneworld on March 29, 2007 – exactly 61 years to the day after its founding. Malév was thus a partner of British Airways, Iberia, Finnair and American Airlines. Which alliance logos show up on aircraft is shown in the article on alliance liveries.

For Budapest Airport this was a shock: Malév accounted for a large share of traffic and revenue, especially the connecting passengers. Low-cost carriers moved into the gap. Budapest-based Wizz Air expanded its offering in Hungary sharply in 2012, and Ryanair announced a base in Budapest shortly after the collapse. How Malév compares to other collapses is put in context by the article on major airline failures in Europe.

How to recognize Malév

In photos from the last years you recognize Malév by the white fuselage with the “MALÉV” titles in capital letters – the accent mark over the É is a good identifying feature. Added to that are the Hungarian registration with HA- and, from 2007, the oneworld logo on individual aircraft.

For older shots the aircraft type helps: a Tu-154 or Il-18 with an HA- registration in Budapest is most likely Malév. For the 65th birthday in 2011 the airline also painted the Dash 8 Q400 HA-LQD in the 1957 livery – one of the airline’s few retro subjects. More such throwbacks are collected in the article on retro liveries.

Malév in a spotter’s life today

You will no longer see Malév in scheduled service. There are three ways to get close to the airline anyway.

First: the Aeropark. At Budapest Airport the open-air museum Aeropark displays several former Malév aircraft, including the Tu-154B-2 HA-LCG, the Tu-134 HA-LBE and two Il-18s. You can walk through many of them. Depending on the runway direction in use, current approaches pass over the grounds – old and new in one picture.

Second: your own archive. Anyone who photographed in Budapest, Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg or another Malév destination between the 1980s and 2012 may, with some luck, find Malév aircraft on old memory cards or slides. Type, registration, location and date turn them into clean logbook entries.

Third: the aircraft’s second life. Many Boeing 737s of the last Malév fleet went to new operators after 2012. With the registration and the serial number you can find out where a former Malév aircraft flies today – or whether it has already been retired.

Common mix-ups

• Equating Malév with Wizz Air – Wizz Air is an independent low-cost carrier that was founded in 2003 and grew in Budapest after Malév’s end.
• Dating the founding to 1954 – the name Malév existed from 1954, but the airline itself had been flying since 1946 as Maszovlet.
• Assuming every Tu-154 is Malév – the type flew for many airlines in the then Eastern Bloc. Only the HA- registration and the titles make the identification certain.
• Overestimating the 767 era – Malév flew long-haul only from the early 1990s until 2008.
• Thinking Malév was a low-cost airline – with oneworld, a frequent flyer program and a hub, it was a classic network airline.
• Reading old flight data without the year – airline codes can be reassigned after an airline ends; with MA entries always check the date.

Conclusion

In 66 years Malév tells the story of Hungary: Soviet founding, Tupolevs and Ilyushins in the Cold War, one of the first Boeing fleets in the Eastern Bloc, long-haul to North America, oneworld – and an abrupt end in February 2012. For spotters the airline remains a rewarding archive topic, and in the Aeropark you can even walk through its classics.