Sofia Airport
Facts on SOF
Sofia Airport traces back to a decree signed by Tsar Boris III on 16 September 1937, setting aside land in the village of Vrazhdebna for the airport's construction. The Bulgarian Air Force's Vrazhdebna Air Base still shares the site today.
Source: Wikipedia
The original passenger terminal (now Terminal 1) was built during the Second World War in the style of a modern European railway terminus, designed by architect Ivan Marangozov, but delays meant it did not open to passengers until 1947.
Source: Wikipedia
By the late 1970s the old terminal was handling around 3 million passengers a year, but Comecon's 1979 oil price shock hit traffic hard, and domestic flights all but ceased in the early 1990s as the airport's numbers fell before recovering later that decade.
Source: Wikipedia
A new runway, offset 210 m from the old one, was built with its eastern end crossing the Iskar River bed on a specially constructed bridge; it opened in mid-2006 alongside the new Terminal 2, which was formally inaugurated that December.
Source: Wikipedia
Sofia sits on a high alluvial plain ringed by mountains, and the airport suffers frequent, heavy winter fog as a result; in such conditions flights are diverted to airports elsewhere in Bulgaria or in neighbouring countries, adding many hours to journeys.
Source: Wikipedia
Lufthansa Technik Sofia, a joint venture founded in late 2007, grew into the biggest unit within the Lufthansa Technik Group: by 2018 it ran eight production lines with more than 1,100 staff and the capacity to perform heavy D-Check maintenance on aircraft as large as the Airbus A380.
Source: Wikipedia
Sofia Metro Line 1 was extended about 5 km to reach the airport, opening the Sofia Airport Metro Station on 2 April 2015 next to Terminal 2; passengers using Terminal 1 connect to it by a free shuttle bus.
Source: Wikipedia
The airport passed 8 million passengers for the first time in 2025. Since 2021 it has been run by the Sof Connect consortium — majority-owned by French investment fund Meridiam with a stake held by Austria's Strabag — under a 35-year concession, with Munich Airport International operating it for the first 12 years.
Source: Wikipedia