Over two-thirds of the passengers at Sofia Airport will pass through the terminals faster by air when Bulgaria becomes part of Schengen on March 31, after there will be no passport controls.
Such comments have been made by the CEO of the company managing Sofia Airport, Jesus Caballero, in an interview with the Sega news website, while stressing that passage corridors will open overnight.
We have been ready for a long time because we passed several checks by the EU, which also contributed to the accession to Schengen.
Flights will be distributed between Terminals 1 and 2 in a different way than they are now, and an information campaign will be introduced together with airline companies so there will be no passengers going to the wrong terminal.
Bulgaria’s Burgas Airport is also prepared for Schengen, as confirmed by the airport’s director, Georgi Chipilski.
Terminal 2 was specifically designed to meet the requirements of Schengen passenger service.
In the first half of 2023, a total of 3.4 million passengers were handled at Bulgaria’s largest airport, Sofia Airport, which is 0.7 per cent lower than the number of travellers handled in the same period pre-pandemic.
At the same time, numbers at Bulgaria’s Sofia Airport in 2022 increased notably year-on-year to more than 6 million. However, it still remained over 1 million fewer than those registered in the pre-pandemic period, according to Sofia International Airport’s (SOF) operator SOF Connect.
Last year, SOF Connect unfolded plans to redevelop the Bulgarian capital’s main hub, announcing a BGN 150 million investment in Sofia Airport over the next three years. Such plans were introduced as part of efforts to develop the airport into a sustainable and modern airport.
In October and November last year, a slight decrease was also noted in Varna and Burgas airports in Bulgaria, which, in addition to Sofia, account for the largest airports in this country.
Fraport Group, a German-based company that manages airports in Bulgaria, specifically Varna and Burgas, in November last year revealed that traffic numbers in both facilities decreased by 2.9 per cent year-on-year in November, reaching a total of 83,347 passengers.
The same source revealed that passenger volume at Burgas Airport increased by 118.2 per cent to 8,440 last month, while traffic numbers at Varna Airport decreased by 8.6 per cent to 74,907.
Germany’s Fraport Group also revealed that in October last year, traffic numbers at both Varna and Burgas decreased by an annual 2.7 per cent to 167,293 passengers in October.
