Editorial

The Ski Junction?

As a start point, the Bulgarian tourism figures for 2025 show a healthy increase on the previous year. The number of arrivals from abroad increased by 4.29% to 6,042,061 and overall, 28.8 million overnight stays were registered last year, an increase of 4.2% on the previous year.  Even domestic tourism increased by 2.9%. The value to the local economy was circa 4 billion Euros. So all good then? Well, that may be the case, but the waters look rather choppy for 2026.

The winter season is more or less finished – in Bulgaria, but yet it still thrives in most parts of Europe as excellent late snow conditions prevail, the same conditions as also prevail in Bulgaria. There is however a concerning difference, the resorts in Italy and Austria let alone France and Switzerland are still flush with tourists as we approach April: the Bulgarian resorts are frighteningly quiet. Indeed, the three main resorts of Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo have been deathly quiet apart from the peak period of the last two weeks of February, which is the main school holiday season throughout much of Europe.  Even the local March national holiday, where is past years families would flock to the mountains saw the slopes surprisingly empty. The early season absence of snow will not have helped tourism revenues, but there may be deeper laying issues coming into play.

The countries with a strong history in winter sports such as the aforementioned France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria have a strong domestic audience with many children learning to ski as a part of their school curriculum. It never ceases to amaze how many Bulgarian residents have never skied nor seem to be bothered about wishing to learn. Learning to ski most certainly does not these days feature on the local school curriculum and the cost to learn, aside of the actual cost of ski lessons i.e. lift pass, equipment etc, means only those people of certain financial means would have that ability anyway. Thus a source market (the local population) of future clients has been lost.

It may also be a fact that Geography impacts the local ski market. In Europe, the vast majority of ski areas are frequented by a diverse mix of ski enthusiasts. Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Slovakian, Belgians and the Dutch are huge source markets for the main ski areas already mentioned. They drive to Austria, Italy et al in vast numbers, a fact easily verifiable by the car registration plates at these resorts. Also, this year for whatever reason, Americans have been frequenting the main European resorts in record numbers. With this in mind, it’s hard to imagine the same markets (ignoring the USA) finding a drive to Bulgaria as attractive! The surrounding countries of Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey do provide some tourists to our local resorts and in particular the Turkish market has been a good source market over recent years, but these countries also tend to not have a ski culture ingrained in them and they are also countries who are at the bottom end of the economic scale compared with other European countries i.e. skiing is viewed as an expensive luxury!

Might there also be yet another reason not yet mentioned as to why the local ski sector might be at a cross roads? Cost.

There is no official definition of what constitutes a small ski resort, some measures say less than 20 or 30 runs qualifies it as being “small”, other measures suggest less than 40km of piste qualifies. Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo are relatively small regardless of the measure, with 70,60 and 40 kms and 21, 25 and 20 ski runs respectively. Across Europe there are scores and indeed hundreds of similar sized resorts with the larger and often more famous resorts hosting well over 200km of ski area and even increasing to over 500 kms!

There is a debate as to whether the cost of skiing in Bulgaria is cheaper or not than especially in Austria and Italy. The cost comparisons of a ski pass, rental equipment, accommodation, coffee and food on the slopes can be argued about, but there is one undeniable fact, there is a widespread perception that there is more value for money in the likes of Austria and Italy. A fact supported by the numbers of local skiers who now venture to these destinations for their week away, they can also drive there too! This is the same week that used to be taken in Bansko or Borovets, but less so these days. That does not mean they have discarded the local ski areas for they are frequented on a day by day basis at weekends etc, but the point is that the whole culture of a ski holiday has changed. It is that same perception that now sees local people head to Greece, Turkey or Spain for their summer sojourn, its is simply down to having more choice or is it viewed as ‘’better value for money”. The cost plus (*) approach to economics as seen across all facets of life locally may not last for ever.

The local ski industry has morphed excellently with the times into a bona fide European ski area. The ski areas are modern, though Bansko also suffers from horrendous queues in peak time. Reputation, positively or negatively is communicated via social media with far greater ease than it used to be. Word of mouth translates these days to word via social media. Bulgaria is now a Euro zone member and as we have stated previously, apples are now compared with apples and its going to be interesting in the future which market people visit to buy their apples from.   

(*) Cost Plus – arrived at by looking at the prices in Western Europe and adding 10%.

Mark Thomas

Ignore the Narrative, There’s Money to be Made

Following the narrative is a must in many walks of life, especially if you wish to have a career and hassle-free existence, even if you know the narrative is questionable. Think communism, think Covid, think electric cars. Vested interests control the narrative and those same vested interests usually have financial interests at the core of their actions. We are all familiar with the big “corporations” that many feel set the rules and control (influence) governments and whose prime focus is profit for shareholders. That capitalist spirit though is not solely focused on the “business’” world: think sport. Whilst for example in the USA and UK, sporting teams are indeed a business whose prime intent is to make money: lots of it and if they can win a football or basketball match along the way, then even better. It’s not just sporting teams though that should be the centre of focus, the Olympic movement (IOC) and the world footballs governing body FIFA, considered by many as being the most corrupt organisations in the world, but their food chain is so long that it provides a huge ringfence around anything they do. This year sees the Football World Cup taking place in Canada, Mexico and the USA, it will also be the most polluting sporting event ever but anyone who brings this topic to the fore risks considerable alienation. There is money to be made and where there is money to be made, global narratives are suspended, forget the carbon emission and  offsetting, these are, like the billionairess Leona Helmsley said, “for small people”, she was referencing paying income taxes, but just the same; carbon taxes are for small people not huge profit centres.

So as every corporate traveller is pushed by his/her HR or travel department to cut down on travel and save planet earth and the Greens want holidays to be taken in tents, the narrative is based on “’not us” as there are clear financial objectives of the aforementioned sporting event planners. The fall out though is impressive.

Taking a sample European Country with a half decent football team who has qualified to play in the FIFA World Cup and who have a strong support base, even if such fans watch only three group stage games, they will cover more than 1760 miles or 2840 km just within the host countries and this excludes travel from Europe and back, if the same fans stay with the team all the way to the final they will cover some 14, 14,750 miles or 23,700 kms. This is the equivalent of 3.4 tonnes of CO2e (per person).  The most any fans of a team will travel simply to watch their country in the three groups stage matches is over 3140 miles/ 5050kms to see their team play in Seattle, California and Toronto.

The worst fans/team to suffer is likely to be South Africa, as even assuming they don’t get out of the group stage of three matches, they will still cover a total of 21,090 miles/ 33,900 kms including return flights. This will equate to producing 4.7 tonnes of CO2e per person; the average CO2e emission for the year per person in South Africa is 5.8 tonnes.

So as the most polluting World Cup approaches and the corporate road warrior is encouraged not to travel to save the planet, the newly generated emissions could well exceed 9 million extra tonnes of COSe; double the average of previous tournaments. This is also to roughly 6 million cars being driven in a typical European country per year.

So, the next time an airline asks you to contribute by paying extra for sustainable aviation fuel to reduce carbon emissions or your HR Manager questions your need to travel, refer them to FIFA. 

Anyone Remember Flight No LZ129?

LZ was the long-time flight prefix for Balkan Airlines before it was buried and then re-incarnated as Bulgaria Air with the prefix we all see nowadays of FB. So, what was flight LZ 129: was it a flight to Frankfurt or London, Amsterdam or Paris?

The answer is none of these: it was the flight number of the Zeppelin Hindenburg that carried people in luxury across the Atlantic from Germany to the United States and which had a premature ending to its life on May 6^th 1937 after it exploded whilst docking in New Jersey.

At least Balkan Airlines lasted a bit longer, until 2002 to be exact.

An Italian Job

The Italian Competition Authority has imposed a fine of 256 million Euro on Ryanair for “’abuse of dominant market position””.  The ruling was made at the end of 2025 after a two year investigation. Ryanair holds around 40% market share in Italy on routes to and from the country.

The ruling was based on the airlines attempts to block bookings and payments connected with the travel trade and the restrictive agreements limiting agents from bundling Ryanair flights with other services.

Electric Avenue

The task of government is invariably trying to get public “buy in’’ to something they either don’t want or don’t agree with. The unrelenting push by the EU to force people into driving electric cars shows no sign of abating, that despite the clear evidence that uptake on them has been slow and appears to be reaching a plateau in many countries whose populations have an “independent”” voice.  The fact that electric cars probably create more damage to mother earth than even diesel cars will be overlooked for the time being. So, with that in mind, it’s interesting to see how the uptake of differing types of powered cars is shaping up both in Bulgaria and across Europe.

Here in Bulgaria the numbers of cars per 1000 inhabitants rose from 436 to 484 in 2024 whilst across Europe the figure increased from 544 to 570. In Bulgaria, that equates to a total of 3,640,723 vehicles on the road (out of a population including children of 6.7 million!).

 As to the fuel sources of cars, this is interesting as it also shows the considerable difference between local trends and European trends. In Bulgaria diesel was the “go to” source of power with 48.6% of vehicles using diesel compared with 38.4% across the EU. Next in Bulgaria comes petrol cars at 34.6% (EU 49.2%), followed by LPG 12,5% (EU 2.7%), hybrid electric 2.2% (EU 5%), battery electric 0.6% (EU 2.3%), plug in hybrid 0.2% (EU 1.4%), natural gas 0.1% (EU 0.6%) and other 1.2% (EU 0.2%).

The stand out figure amongst these is not so much that diesel remains the preferred option but that the uptake of Electric Vehicles is minimal to say the least. Only 6 countries in the EU had a market share of electric cars of over 4%! If the laws of supply and demand were applied today, the notion of electric cars would be scrapped.

A Cultural Issue

Have you ever been on a flight where someone decides they will take out their phone/laptop/tablet and play whatever it is they want to play, but then also decide that the rest of the passengers would like to hear the content as well? Such occurrences are far from rare and seem – for some reason – to be more prevalent on Low-Cost Airlines, particularly if we use ex Sofia flights as a benchmark. In the USA, the rules surrounding this are much tougher than in Europe and it is not uncommon for airlines there to have strict policies forbidding such a practice. United Airlines have recently taken this one step further with a rule that passengers who do not adhere to the current rules will be banned from flying with them in future!

Its not usual that rules connected with aviation in the USA better EU rules but this would appear to be one of them. Maybe Wizz Air will take note.

Down Under Options Increase

Around 14,000 people fly between Europe and Australia on any particular day where besides BA and Qantas, the hub carriers of Etihad, Qatar and Emirates are joined by the likes of Singapore and Cathay in providing the uplift of passengers. More recently, Turkish have joined the fray and they have expansive plans to develop the route. From December, another airline will join the party and its not an airline people would expect.

Finnair plan to start daily flights from Helsinki to Melbourne via Bangkok and whilst this may seem unlikely to succeed, they will have the advantage of having “’fifth freedom’’ rights between Bangkok and Melbourne. This means they can carry passengers from Finland to Bangkok and then a completely different set of passengers from Bangkok to Melbourne and the same vice versa.

This makes sound business sense as the demand from Scandinavia as well as from passengers who can utilise the Finnair network to travel to Thailand should not be underestimated. At the same time, Thailand is also a popular destination for Australians. In short its generally a “win-win” scenario all round.

Frankfurt Airport Expands

Frankfurt Airport is to open a 4 billion Euro new airport Terminal in April with the inauguration of the new Terminal 3. The terminal will have a capacity of 19 million passengers per year and it will be the home for 60 airlines. The terminal has been under construction for 10 years and will feature three piers plus the latest CT security scanners.

Just for reference, Frankfurt Airport passenger traffic still lags behind pre-covid levels at 63.2 million   passengers compared with 71 million in 2019. Frankfurt Airport operator Fraport also manages 28 other airports across Europe including in Greece and Bulgaria where overall numbers are positive compared with pre covid levels.

Increase on the Tracks

Anyone travelling between the UK and France will no doubt have been split between choosing air or rail travel between the two; particularly if the two end points are Paris and London. The coming of rail travel back in 1994 offered an altogether new option for travellers and the popularity of rail now sees 20 million passengers using rail as the mode of transport between the two countries as per the figures released at the end of 2025.

To ensure travellers continue to see rail as a viable option, Eurostar, currently the sole operator on the Channel Tunnel link, are investing 2 billion Euro’s in fleet renewals with the planned introduction of double-decker trains by 2031.

It is also worth noting that competition for Eurostar is coming soon as the UK rail regulator has approved plans for the Virgin Group to launch new services on the routes currently monopolised by Eurostar.

Sofia Airport Adds New Destinations

As the new summer aviation timetable kicks in, the operators of Sofia Airport are keeping their word and attracting new destinations to the Sofia Airport portfolio, thirty airlines will connect the Bulgarian capital with 94 destinations during the summer months.

National carrier Bulgaria Air will operate flights to Porto in Portugal for the first time, but its Ryanair and Wizz Air who will bring the most to the table.

Ryanair will start flights to Marrakech twice weekly as well as to Turin when it will operate three times per week. Wizz Air meanwhile is certainly viewing Sofia as a key hub with new flights slated to Rimini in Italy where it will operate four flights weekly; obviously focussing on the beach traffic. They will also start flights to Palma De Mallorca and Santander in Spain. Flights to Budapest will start early July with four flights weekly and Greece is served with one eye on the summer traffic with flights to both Corfu and Rhodes. A further new route is Palermo in Sicily, again with four flights weekly and also Tirana will be served by Wizz three times per week. Slightly further afield, flights will start in July to the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh with the resort of Hurghada added from October.

Finally worth mentioning is that both Ryanair and Wizz will start flights this month to Lamezia Terma; Ryanair three times per week and Wizz twice weekly. If you are unaware where this destination is located refer to google maps (you are not alone). Whether this destination can support five flights weekly from Sofia is another question.

Ticket Cost Increase

Hot off the press is the report that airfares globally have risen by an average of 24% during March compared with the previous year; one of the sharpest increases in recent history. The reason is of course the start of the conflict in the gulf, prior to this, the actual fares had been slightly lower for the first weeks of the year compared with 2024.

Almost certainly, fares will continue to rise as fuel chains are threatened with airlines facing significantly higher fuel bills. Anyone who has a ticket already issued for travel in the near time will be the likely winner.

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