There’s a new Bulgarian airline with an Airbus A330 that plans to start flying to New York…
Continue reading: GullivAir, Bulgaria’s New Long Haul Airline
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Your flight map is showing Bucharest (OTP) as departure point, but text and source are talking about Sofia. Probably just a small mistake or did I miss something?
@ Peer -- Fixed, thanks! Sorry, was mixing up the charter flights the airline is currently operating, and the planned scheduled flights in the future.
I think they hired the same livery designers as those who design generic airlines for TV/film
Seems like with that bandit mask they're trying to pass off their A332 as an A330neo lol
It looks like someone in Bulgaria thinks the last Pan Am “billboard” livery looked good.
Seasonaly this could work very well, albeit with flights to BOJ. Whilst Sunny Beach in Bulgaria has an image of lads on tour but there are some lovely beaches and hotels in the region. A 1-2X weekly flight to NYC & DEL would work well attracting the middle class who would like a 1-2 week beach resort holiday but not spend 6+K for the same amenities and climate. The region is very popular with wealthy Russians, Polish and Germans. For the winter months the Sofia departures would work well as it's a lovely city, they could potentially get feeder traffic from the UAE with Wizz Air as self transfer/unprotected connections
Bulgaria’s Balkan airline have had more long haul destinations than most of Europe in the 70s, do some research before claiming “they always struggled”.
By March 1970, Balkan served 22 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe plus nine domestic destinations.
For example, Finnair did their first long haul in 1969 while Balkan was flying direct to Kenya in 1962.
I am using Finnair as an example due to logo comments 🙂
One aircraft means a very vulnerable operation. Look at what happened to Norwegian when they started out - travellers were delayed for days. I’d be very surprised if they had any sort of agreements with other airlines to fly stranded passengers to their destinations. Expect to fight for any compensation or good IRROPS handling
New York, Toronto, and Delhi?? Are they trying to connect North American passengers to Delhi, thereby becoming a very mini version of Emirates? Anyone know if such connections are part of their business plan?
Their livery makes it seem as if they have the A330neos lol. At first sight, anyone would think it's an A330neo before spotting the A330-standard winglets.
They will also operate some charter flights out of Sofia to the Maldives /around Christmas and new year/ and to Zanzibar/in February and March/.
I live in Sofia, Bulgaria. There has been talk of direct flights to the United States for several years, but the problem is that they cannot fill such a large plane. I don't see what has changed now, but I don't think the whole idea will be very successful.
Takes me back to the Bulgarian airline that left me stranded in Europe back in the early 90’s when they went bankrupt. Anyone remember JesAir?
It seems with their scheduled plans (JFK, YYZ, DEL) they want to capture a slice of the India - USA market. Both JFK and YYZ are huge markets for indian travellers visiting family and a market that all the european carriers chase.
@ Morgan -- No, it's an A330-200 that's painted to look like a neo. Just look at the wingtips, that's not a neo.