Monday, March 25, 2013

Bulgaria loses tourists due to charter flights

(Sofia, Mar 25) - Foreign airlines are seizing the charter flights market from and to Bulgaria, the president of the Bulgarian aviation association Svetoslav Stanulov reported. Bulgarian airlines are increasingly losing ground to the operating foreign companies in the air market. Against the backdrop of strong growth of 4.6 % of tourists coming to our country (2.612 million in 2012 from 2.496 million in 2011) home airlines reported a drastic decline of 20.9%, which has reduced their share of the Bulgarian charter air market from 51 to 38.5%. 

There is a serious concern that after taking over our charter market, the foreign airlines will increase the prices of flights which will also pump of the price of packages tours. This however, could scare away tourists from our seaside resorts, leading to a general decline in the whole industry, he said.

Bulgarian airlines are losing their charter market positions due to the short season of only 100 days, which does not generate enough revenue for them to maintain their aircraft. As a result, they  export their planes to work abroad and tourists coming to Bulgaria ride by foreign aircraft. For example, "Air Via" exported two of its planes to Saudi Arabia and the third one to Iceland, and will only operate with three aircraft in Bulgaria, its director Captain Atanas Vitkov said. Accordingly its charter flights will be reduced from 1,300 in 2012 to about 1,000 this year. The captain expects a substantial drop in the number of Israeli tourists but not because of the bombing in Burgas, but due to their turn to the cheaper Greek resorts, he explained.


Source:  http://paper.standartnews.com

No comments:

Post a Comment