Sofia Airport

Sofia Airport is Bulgaria's principal gateway and the busiest airport on the Balkan peninsula outside Turkey and Greece, serving the national capital and economic center of a country of 6.5M people. Located roughly 10 km (6 mi) east of central Sofia at 1,742 ft (531 m) elevation in the plain between the Vitosha and Stara Planina mountains, SOF handled approximately 8.5M passengers in 2024, a post-pandemic record driven by a growing low-cost sector and steady diaspora demand to western Europe. The airport has become one of the most contested low-cost bases in southeastern Europe. Wizz Air is the largest operator, having built Sofia into one of its top continental bases with a double-digit A321 fleet, followed by Ryanair from its Sofia base and a significant network from Bulgaria Air, the national flag carrier. In total 40 airlines operate 183 scheduled routes to 99 destinations, with particularly dense service to Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain, and the Middle East. Long-haul connecting traffic is funneled primarily through Vienna, Frankfurt, Munich, Istanbul, and Doha. A single 11,811 ft (3,600 m) asphalt runway (09/27) supports two terminals: T1, the older Soviet-era structure retained for low-cost charter operations, and T2, opened in 2006, which handles the majority of scheduled traffic. A concession awarded in 2021 to a consortium led by Meridiam and Strabag committed more than 600M EUR of investment over the life of the contract, including a planned new passenger terminal and runway upgrades. T2 is also the terminus of Sofia Metro Line M4, one of relatively few European capital airports with a direct downtown metro connection.