Bulgarian Airline GullivAir has Permanently Suspended Flights to Skopje, Tirana and Burgas
The Bulgarian airline GullivAir has permanently suspended regular flights to Skopje (North Macedonia), Tirana (Albania) and Burgas (Bulgaria).
This was reported to TravelNews by officials from Sofia Airport. A check of the airline's website revealed that online tickets are no longer being sold for the three destinations. The last flight to Burgas took place at the end of May, and to Skopje and Tirana at the end of June.
GullivAir has already returned the three small ATR 72 planes to the lessor because it cannot pay its dues, airport officials said. For this reason, the flights announced earlier this year from Sofia to Ruse, to Bucharest, Thessaloniki, from Burgas to Belgrade and other destinations in the Balkans will probably not be fulfilled. The manager and owner of GullivAir Yanko Ivanov did not comment on the reason for the suspension of the lines and the return of the planes.
The concessionaire "SOF Connect" of Sofia Airport did not officially comment on anything either. The suspension of flights is probably due to low interest and the lack of passengers, explained the tourism industry. According to experts, the three countries - Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Albania, have promised support for the regular lines, but in reality, this has not been implemented. Last week, the Ministry of Transport allocated BGN 500,000 to GullivAir, but this was just help for Bulgarian air carriers affected by the Covid pandemic.
Again, there is currently no air connection between Sofia, Skopje and Tirana. Only "Bulgaria Air" operates from Sofia to Burgas during the summer season. Initially, GullivAir flew daily to Skopje and Burgas. Then reduce the frequency. It operated four times a week to Tirana - Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The line to the Albanian capital was mostly used by tour operators offering hotel accommodation packages for holidays and excursions along the Adriatic coast.
GullivAir also intended to launch a regular direct route to the US this summer season. No flights have been announced at this stage. It has had permits since last year to operate to New York from the US Department of Transportation. After that, it got them to Canada, Thailand, Maldives, India. "For now, we do not have an exact date from when the flights to the USA will depart," Janko Ivanov recently told TravelNews.
GullivAir also has three Airbus A330-200s that can operate long-haul flights. Currently doing charters with them. During the pandemic, it carried out mainly those from Sofia and Bucharest to Male (Maldives), to Punta Cana (Dominican Republic), Sri Lanka and Seychelles, which were organized by tour operators.
GullivAir was registered in 2016 under the name "Top Jets", changed to this one in mid-2020, a Commercial Register reference shows. It is owned by the company "Air Logistics", which is the sole property of Yanko Ivanov.
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