Hungarian Foreign Ministry Discloses Costs of Szijjártó's 2021 Japan-Azerbaijan Trip: Known Expenses of About €412,000, Including a Roughly €395,000 Private Jet Charter
Why It MattersCourt-forced disclosure of a government VistaJet charter shows that public-sector use of private aviation can be made to reveal its costs, which may increase scrutiny of state charter spending.
Hungary's foreign ministry has disclosed the cost of former Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó's 2021 trip to Japan and Azerbaijan, after more than two years of litigation by the investigative outlet Átlátszó. The ministry's lawyer submitted the figures in September 2026, following a Supreme Court judgment in the data lawsuit that Átlátszó had won at first instance, second instance and the Supreme Court.
A private plane was chartered for the trip at a cost of 143.5 million HUF (about €395,000). The Budapest–Osaka–Tokyo leg cost 139.2 million HUF (about €383,500) in aircraft rental, while the Tokyo–Baku segment was listed at 4.2 million HUF (roughly €11,600). Átlátszó called the breakdown odd, saying Szijjártó flew the full Budapest–Osaka–Tokyo–Baku route on the chartered plane and that the stated Tokyo–Baku figure is unrealistic given the distance and flight time. The ministry's current leadership also supplied accommodation costs of nearly 6 million HUF (about €16,500) for two nights: 5.4 million HUF (roughly €14,900) in Tokyo and just over 400,000 HUF (around €1,100) in Baku. Adding the charter and accommodation figures, known costs approach 149.5 million HUF, or roughly €412,000, excluding the Hungarian Defence Forces aircraft.
The trip began on 7 March 2021, with talks in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo and a stop in Baku on the way home. The chartered aircraft was a Maltese-registered Bombardier Global 6000, 9H-VJW, operated by VistaJet, and flight-tracking data showed it followed the same itinerary as the minister. When Átlátszó first filed a freedom-of-information request about the rental costs, the ministry replied that it did not hold such data.
Flight-traffic data showed a Defence Forces Dassault Falcon 7X (registration 607) flew from Kecskemét to Baku as the ministerial delegation arrived from Japan. Both aircraft returned from Baku to Budapest the next day. The ministry confirmed that Szijjártó did not return on the private plane but transferred to the military aircraft, which carried state officials including MP Zoltán Demeter and deputy state secretaries István Joó and Dóra Zombori, as well as representatives of private companies, among them V-Híd Zrt.
