Aviation

All 37 Lufthansa-operated flights between Sofia and Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf are cancelled on Wednesday due to a strike of the pilots of the German airline.

After a strike on long-haul flights on Tuesday, the pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) announced a strike on its short- and medium-haul flights from and to Germany on Wednesday.

Bulgaria will not allow Russian aircraft transporting aid to Syria to use its airspace, it has been announced in Sofia on Tuesday.

"The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry has rejected Russia's request for their planes to fly over Bulgaria on their way to Syria," a spokesman was quoted as telling Reuters.

The use of Greece's airspace for Russian planes transporting aid to Syria "is no longer a problem," a Greek government spokesman said on Tuesday.

Previously, the United States asked Greece to deny Russian planes the right to use the country's airspace for such flights.

The airport of the Bulgarian capital serviced 418 846 passengers in August, which represented an increase of 11 % compared to the same month in 2014.

August is traditionally the busiest month for Sofia Airport, daily Dnevnik informs.

Pilots at German airline Lufthansa said on Sept. 7 they will stage new walkouts on freight and long-haul passenger services on Sept. 8 in their long-running dispute with management over early retirement provisions.

A US company is considering the option to use land near Sofia Airport to set up a aircraft parts factory there, a Bulgarian official has said.

Muslim flight attendant Charee Stanley, aged 40, was suspended from her duties by Expressjet for 12 months in late August after she refused to serve alcohol. The flight attendant says serving alcohol is against her religious beliefs and took her case to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.

A man proposed to his girlfriend on an easyJet flight from Manchester to Mykonos. Love was in the air as Kevin Christie, aged 41, popped the question to Kamila Maier, a woman more than half his age.
He requested use of the intercom from the flight attendant who introduced Christie at the front of the plane to the amusement of 200 other passengers.

Russia?s state-controlled flagship airline Aeroflot is set to buy its struggling competitor Transaero, sources said on Sept. 1.

The repair of the MiG-29 fighter jets by Poland will be twice cheaper than the cost, which would have been incurred if the maintenance was carried out by the the Russian MiG company.

Nenchev revealed that a price, which is 20-30% lower than the one requested by the Russian company, was negotiated with Poland.