Budapest's Ferihegy International Airport was running smoothly Thursday despite an ongoing strike by ground staff, dpa reported.
No flights were cancelled and there were no major delays, airport management said on Thursday. Although the strike had not been called off, many ground staff returned to work of their own accord.
Domokos Szollar, spokesman for the airport operator Budapest Airport (BA), said that 70 per cent of ground staff had turned up for work on Thursday.
Meanwhile talks between management and unions continue. BA recently put a compromise agreement on the table in which it offers to extend the current collective contract with ground staff until March.
BA hoped this would convince unions to lift the strike, while allowing time for the negotiation of new terms and conditions.
Strike committee leader Zoltan Kovacs acknowledged on Thursday that BA management had moved closer to the position of the striking workers. However, he said the unions would only sign the agreement if several important changes are made.
The two unions behind the strike are demanding that a collective contract for ground staff be extended for three years until a new one is agreed, and that BA abandon a restructuring programme and pledge not to cut staff.
"Although the positions of the two sides on several points moved closer during today's negotiations, several important questions remain open, for example those regarding the collective contract, working conditions and allowances," Kovacs told the local news agency MTI.
There was major disruption at Hungary's only major international airport in the early days of the now eight-day-old strike, with long queues and dozens of cancelled flights.
However, BA concentrated all available staff at one terminal so the airport could continue to function, and the situation for passengers gradually improved.
In a controversial move on Monday BA, which is owned by the German firm Hochtief, brought in several dozen Greek temporary staff to man security gates and speed up the processing of passengers.
The use of foreign workers to break the strike was condemned by domestic and European trade union organisations.
The militant Greek trade union organisation PAME in a statement on Thursday expressed solidarity with Hungarian transport workers, adding that it had demanded the Greek labour ministry do all it can to prevent the use of domestic workers to undermine foreign industrial action, MTI reported.