Travel: Flights to Sofia from London Gatwick (lgw)

• Sofia Airport (IATA: SOF) (ICAO: LBSF),

There are several flights a day to Vienna, and daily flights to some of the major European hubs. Tickets of traditional airlines can be pretty expensive, since there aren't that many carriers flying daily to Sofia.

Bulgarian flag-carrier airline is "Bulgaria Air" (http://www.air.bg/en) with Sofia as a hub, and for example two-way ticket to/from Madrid & Barcelona will be about 230 Euros. Another Bulgarian company "Viaggio Air" (http://www.viaggioair.com) can also be a bargain with two-way ticket to Vienna for 200 Euros and to Istanbul for 100 Euros. Other traditional airlines with flights to/from Sofia are Air France, Al Italia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Czech Airlines, Helios Air, LOT, Lufthansa, Malev, Olympic Airways, Tarom, and Turkish Airlines.

As of January 2006 there are two low-cost carriers traveling to Bulgaria. These are WizzAir (http://www.wizzair.com/) which recently started daily flights to/from Budapest and from there to about 12 European destinations and SkyEurope (http://www.skyeurope.com) with hub-airport Bratislava. They use same airport with flights landing and taking off at night.

Cheap charters to Varna and Burgas airports on the Black Sea coast are available (especially in spring & fall), and from there to Sofia (for about 60 euros one-way).