Review of Bulgaria Air flight Sofia → London in Economy

journey - (BErlin & Sofia):

Introduction:

Welcome to my 2nd report on this website!

After spending time with my family in Sofia, Bulgaria over most of the Easter Holidays, it was finally time to return to London. After my previous experience with Bulgaria Air, I was more than happy to be flying them again on another one of their new Airbus A220s. This time for an even longer flight than last time! Some could argue that its more time to enjoy what Bulgaria Air has to offer.

DEparture from Sofia Airport (SOF):

After stepping out of the Sofia Airport Metro station (it takes around 25 - 30 minutes to get to the city centre from there) I entered Terminal 2's Check-in hall where I managed to print out my boarding pass so I could keep it as a souvenir. I then ascended the escalators to Security whilst being greeted by the resident Turkish Airlines cabin crew member.

My flight today was the 15:30 to London Heathrow:

Sofia Airport is the main international airport in Bulgaria and serves the capital city, Sofia. It was opened in September 1936 and was used during the Second World War. By the late 1970s the airport was handling upwards of 3 million passengers per year. The airport has witnessed the rise and fall of many Bulgarian flag carriers, the latest being Bulgaria Air who started operations in 2002 and has been operating since. Sofia Airport now handles roughly 7 million passengers annually.

Sofia Airport is located 10 kilometres from Sofia's city centre and can be accessed by bus, taxi and the Sofia Metro.

Terminal 1 is served by Low cost carriers Wizz Air and easyJet whilst Terminal 2 handles mainstream carriers British Airways, Lufthansa Group, LOT, El Al, ITA Airways, Qatar Airways, Bulgaria Air (which have a base here), a couple others and low cost carrier Ryanair. The northern sector of the airport is utilised by the Bulgarian Air Force as Vrazhdebna Air Base.

SOF has one runway; 09/27. This runway was put into operation in 2006 replacing the old runway now offset by 210 metres to the north and extended. The new runway is 3600 metres long and can handle 20 aircraft movements an hour. Its worth noting that the eastern end of the runway crosses a newly constructed bridge over the Iskar River.

After Security, you reach Terminal 2's main departures area. It has a small world duty free section and some stands and a cafe going down past the gates. There also was a singular swissport ASPIRE lounge. Now after Bulgaria joined the Schengen via air & sea, the old passport control after Security has been removed as most flights from Sofia Airport are to other Schengen nations. However, as I was flying to the UK which isn't a Schengen country (let alone an EU member) there is a new passport control check near the end of the hallway for flights going to non-Schengen nations.

The rest of the terminal after the passport control check:

Here's a few aircraft I passed on the way to the gate:

Flight Fb851 (SOF - LHR):

At around 03:00pm EEST, I was let in into Gate B12. Our aircraft for today wasn't parked here so I was lucky to have the liberty to take the airside bus to the aircraft. Boarding was slow however due to the flight having a full load and we had push-backed 27 minutes late. For me this wasn't a problem as I wasn't in a rush to get home.

The example in question, which we were flying on today, was LZ-PAR the third A220-300 delivered to Bulgaria Air in October 2023. Readers who read my last report might notice a similarity between the registrations of these new planes. The last three letters represent a destination that Bulgaria Air serves or a Bulgarian city. At the time of writing, in the existing Bulgaria Air fleet, the pattern is as follows:

LZ-SOF - E190 - Sofia
LZ-PLO - E190 - Plovdiv
LZ-BUR - E190 - Burgas
LZ-VAR - E190 - Varna
LZ-ROM - A220 - Rome
LZ-LON - A220 - London
LZ-PAR - A220 - Paris
LZ-AMS - A220 - Amsterdam

I quite like this design choice by Bulgaria Air and it is exciting to think what the next ones might be!

Like last time, I was greeted by the friendly cabin crew who hand out bottles of water to everyone (as opposed to waiting for the inflight service). It makes me wonder how they might do this upon boarding due to the fact that the AC isn't turned until the aircraft is moving (This has happened on both flights I've been on Bulgaria Air so far) Bulgaria Air's A220-300s can capacitate 143 people with 8 Business Class seats at the front and 135 Economy Class seats behind them. Coincidentally, I was sat in the same seat as last time (13F), which is one row behind the emergency exits and a windows seat with a clear wing view.

Due to the strange nature of the Airbus A220s having a 3-2 seating configuration there are no seats with the letter 'B'.

The seat itself is probably the best product I have sat in in my life (so far). A generous recline and legroom and adjustable head rests is practically unheard of when flying Economy within Europe. Other features include two inflight magazines and a safety card in the seat back pocket (although today I was missing the Bloomberg one, which isn't a shame as I wouldn't want to read it anyways), a large enough tray table which can be pulled back and forth, a stand for small handheld devices and a charging point that fits USB-C and USB-A cables, yet more features which are never seen and most existing Intra-European products (in Economy!).

Running 15 minutes late, at 03:45pm local time, we began taxiing towards runway 09. Then at 03:57pm, we line-up and take-off heading east, over the Iskar River, before making a U-turn over the town of Kremikovtsi and heading west whilst climbing to our cruising altitude of 38,000ft. 

Roughly an hour after take off, the complimentary meal service began. For Economy passengers, it consists of a (warm!) and tasty ham & cheese sandwich and a drink of your choice. The drinks on option were Water, Fanta, Coke, Sprite, Apple and Orange Juice, Coffee, Tea and Wine. Yes, that's right, Wine! (seems like another thing that Bulgaria Air just does better). I chose the Apple Juice

About half an hour later the cabin crew handed out a familiar favourite; mini branded chocolates. Being a chocoholic myself I think it is safe to say that I devoured it! On top of that, a little while later, a second round of drinks were offered, perhaps to keep the stomach happy. They unfortunately had ran out of Apple Juice, so this time I opted for a Fanta.

After that I decided to get up and stretch my legs (but also to visit the toilet as all those drinks had made me do so). The cabin itself was clean and smart and if you're wondering why the cabin looks a bit short, it's because Business Class is situated behind those curtains.

The toilets themselves were clean and brightly-lit, otherwise there's not much to say about them.

Arrival into london heathrow airport (LHR):

It was 04:30pm BST when we started our descent just off the coast of Belgium, over the English Channel, heading for London Heathrow Airport (LHR).

 We were over the outskirts of North London, when we banked left, joining the base leg, just before banking right, over London City Airport (LCY), to line-up on final approach. My favourite thin about flying into LHR is the views. When arriving from the east, depending on what side of the aircraft you sit on, you are given the opportunity to witness spectacular views of London, seeing famous landmarks including the Olympic Park and Stadium, Canary Wharf, the O2 Arena, Tower Bridge, the Shard (Western Europe's tallest building!), Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Wembley Stadium (home to the national football team) and even Heathrow itself!

'London Heathrow Airport' (LHR) is the biggest and busiest of the 6 London airport's. It opened in 1946 and since then has grown rapidly. It is currently the busiest in Europe with Istanbul Airport following shortly behind and is the eighth busiest internationally. In 2023 it handled 79,000,000 passengers, 1,400,000 tonnes of cargo and 450,000 aircraft movements.

LHR is located 23 kilometres west of Central London and is very accessible by bus, car, taxi, London Underground, the Elizbeth Line and the Heathrow Express which can be used from all 4 terminals.

Terminal 1 closed in 2015. Terminal 2 serves Star Alliance, China Airlines, several short-haul non-aligned airlines and some domestic flights. Terminal 3 serves Oneworld (except Iberia, Malaysia Airlines, Royal Air Maroc and Qatar Airways), Aeromexico, Delta Air Lines, Middle East Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and several long-haul non-aligned airlines. Terminal 4 serves SkyTeam (except Aeromexico, China Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Middle East Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic), Malaysia Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Qatar Airways as well as most non-aligned airlines. Finally, Terminal 5 serves British Airways (most destinations) and Iberia.

LHR utilises 2 runways; 09L/27R in the north and 09R/27L in the south. The alteration for takeoffs and landings on these runways changes every day at 3pm.

At 04:02pm local time, arriving 17 minutes late, we touched down smoothly on runway 27L. We taxied left and turned to Terminal 4 before parking at the gate. Disembarkation took a little while but this flight did have a full load factor. Passport Control at T4 was as expected: slightly busy due to the amount of long-haul flights arriving, but leaving the terminal from there was more than easy.

Here is the flight's routing: