Sofia Airport

Change in the order of landing at Sofia Airport. From today, all planes arriving between 20.00 and 8.00 will be served at Terminal 2. The airport explains that this will facilitate the processing of documents and the passage of passengers will be faster.

Sofia Airport will serve all incoming evening flights at Terminal 2

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the special investment company Sof Connect AD have signed a loan agreement of EUR 40 million for the modernization of Sofia International Airport, BNR reported, referring to the bank. Funding is supported by the European Commission's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

Gunfire broke out in a metro train carriage at the Sofia metro Airport station.

Several teams of police and emergency services have been sent to the scene.

The pandemic has an extremely negative impact on civil aviation. Passenger flows have plummetd not only to and from Bulgaria, this is a global problem, especially strongly felt on a European scale. Such a catastrophic situation has probably not happened since World War II.

Deserted metro tunnels feel like the set of a B movie thriller: 'COVID-19: The Lockdown', perhaps.

Yet Sofia Airport is still running, more than most other airports in the Balkans. And it is not without controversy.

COVID-19: Arriving on time

Sign at Sofia Airport. Photo: Svetoslav Todorov

There is a 53% decline in the passengers at Sofia Airport and the reason is the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which led to the cancellation of a large part of the flights.

In March last year, the passengers who passed through Sofia Airport were about 572,000. However, in March 2020 they are almost 270 000.

There are cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) reported in almost all Balkan countries, making its spread into Bulgaria inevitable, Chief Health State Inspector Dr.Angel Kunchev said at a briefing on Thursday.

London/Heathrow remained the EU's busiest passenger airport in 2018, with 80 million passengers handled, slightly up (+3%) compared with 2017. Paris/Charles de Gaulle (72 million, +4%), Amsterdam/Schiphol (71 million, +4%), Frankfurt/Main (69 million, +8%) and Madrid/Barajas (56 milion, +9%) completed the top 5 of the busiest airports in the EU.

Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 will be redesigned so that passengers feel "immersed in Bulgarian culture". Sofia Airport's Terminal 3 should be ready in 10 years. This is the the vision for change and the development plan of the SOF Connect consortium, which won the concession at Sofia Airport.

The result of a long-running procedure to find a concessionaire for Sofia Airport in Bulgaria has concluded, with the award being made to a consortium. Following a 90-day tender evaluation, Bulgaria's Ministry of Transport (MoT) has selected a consortium comprising Munich Airport GmbH and the asset manager Meridiam to operate and manage Sofia Airport for 35 years under the consortium name 'Sof