Editorial

According to official data from the National Meteorological Bureau, October was the country’s rainiest since 1930 and the coldest since 2022 with the average monthly temperatures between 8 and 15 C. Curiously enough, nationwide, the highest temperatures were in late October with Sevlievo seeing 25.8 degrees on October 23^rd whilst the capital Sofia saw a high of 21.1 degrees on the same day. During the month, intense rainfall caused numerous floods and deaths along the Black Sea Coast and especially around Tsarevo and Elenite on the 2^nd October. The trend continued as did the floods up to the 9-10 October, particular in the Black Sea ad Danube catchment basin.

Whilst this is not a weather bulletin what it does highlight is the difficulty, indeed almost impossibility, that the summer season on the Black Sea can be prolonged beyond its early September cut off; something the Ministry of Tourism is keen to develop. It is true that other parts of the Mediterranean have seen flash floods, particularly in the Valencia region, in Ibiza and Mallorca, so the phenomenon is not unique to Bulgaria. The issue though is also not just about the weather but also about public perception.

Destinations in Greece, Spain, Italy and even Turkey have developed a reputation as somewhere you can go most months of the year to get an intake of Vitamin D. Whilst some of the more northerly cities or resorts in the aforementioned countries might provide more favourable weather conditions for one month or longer at both the start and end of summer, many locations in Spain, Turkey and lets bring Cyprus into the equation, provide good to excellent weather conditions almost continuously for those seeking autumn, winter or  early spring sun. Thus, why try compete with a product you can’t compete with? The avenue of how to best extend the flow of incoming tourists from a local perspective is more likely to be best served not on the Black Sea but inland.

The country has a wealth of places of cultural interest from Plovdiv to Perperikon, it has Monasteries and Churches, it has a mass of as yet undiscovered wineries, it has countless spas and health centres, it has swathes of mountains ideal for hiking and trekking, it has rivers, lakes and streams and yet the sentiment surrounding tourism seem to stop at the letter B: Borovets, Bansko and Black Sea.

Only a fool would not utilse the assets at its disposal, yet the cultural, historic and natural assets on our doorstep are largely untapped from outside the country. Maybe a comparison can be made of communist Bulgaria in the pre-1990’s era when the seaside was largely unknown outside the scope of like-minded regimes. Maybe the comparison is with the late 2000’s ski resorts of Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo who suddenly found a whole new market! The greater tourism product is already waiting to be tapped into, one that can fill in the gaps between the traditional summer and winter seasons; it just doesn’t begin with the letter B.

Mark Thomas

When Logic is Applied

The German government has bowed to logic and has announced a set of relief measures for the aviation sector there. It is reversing the ill thought out increase in the country’s air passenger tax which was increased by 20% last year by the previous government and it will also start a phased reduction in the air traffic control fees as well as a decrease in costs for security checks.

Airlines have already voiced their disapproval of the increases and Ryanair actively pulled hundreds of thousands of seats from the market; the government finally seeing sense which is unusual when it comes to politicians and commerce.

Without referring to the Harvard Business School handbook of commercial logic, more people flying = stimulates business = creates employment = facilitates more tax revenues = stimulates the country’s economy. Why wouldn’t you follow this route?  Green extremists on government grants need to reply.

New Iberian Link

Travelling by train is continuing to garner attention in Europe and the latest move in this direction sees approval being granted by the Portuguese and Spanish governments for a new high speed train line between Lisbon and Madrid. The European Commission also gave its backing as no doubt this is where much of the finance will come from.

The 600 km distance between the two capitals isn’t currently served by direct train and once complete, the journey time will be around 3 hours, making it comparable with the end-to-end time it takes to fly between the cities. Currently there are 40 flights per day between Lisbon and Madrid.

A similar scenario ensued when the Barcelona – Madrid line became high speed and the flights between the two reduced significantly though noticeably not entirely as flights are still almost every thirty minutes.

Upscale Leads the Way

The Hotel boom continues unabated across Europe with some 300 hotels contributing 37,500 rooms coming on stream. During the first 9 months of this year, 195 new hotels appeared together with 23,500 rooms. The last quarter of this year is expected to see a further 105 hotels opening their doors across Europe offering 14,000 rooms. By comparison in 2024, 289 hotels opened together with 39,000 rooms.

Looking ahead to 2026, 340 new hotels are expected with another 350 due in 2027 which combined will provide 95,000 new rooms.

The UK is leading the way with new openings at 277, of which 76 are in London. They are followed by Germany with 152 and Turkey with 140.

Just out of interest, in the numbers mentioned above, the driver is the “upscale” sector with 357 planned openings followed by “upper upscale” properties with 287. Who says people are tightening their financial belts?

Wizz Class!

In an attempt to attract more business passengers, Wizz Air is to trial its own version of Business Class! Its new offering will offer blocked off middle seats along with priority boarding and dedicated space on the overhead bins. The offering will be cheaper than buying another adjacent seat outright. The devil though may be in the detail and that detail is that they will only be offered when demand arises.

Interestingly, the real story in this article might be the ‘’dedicated space in the overhead bins”. How many times have you had to put your bag in an overhead bin that’s many rows away from you and which wreaks havoc when you try to exit the plane in a rush for a meeting/train etc?  Might it be that the concept of “dedicated space” is a new charge waiting to happen and might Ryanair be kicking themselves for not thinking of this first?

The Battle of the EU Lobbyists

The EU Council, which represents the 27 member states, has proposed extending the three hour compensation rule for delays to four hours for short haul and nine hours for long haul. However, the European Parliament wants to maintain the three-hour rule as well as ensuring passengers can take a bag onboard for free.

The airlines of course want to avoid paying anything whilst still charging passengers for everything and without taking ownership for its own actions or indeed lack of actions! Delaying a flight or cancelling a flight at short notice would seem to be fair and reasonable in the airline’s eyes.

One can see where the airlines budget for lobbying is directed.

Ryanair Passenger Numbers Soar

The latest financials from Ryanair show it carried over 207 million passengers in the past year and is pushing ahead with its target of carrying 300 million by 2034. Just by way of comparison Lufthansa caried 131 million passengers in 2024.

In carrying this number of passengers, its profit after tax for the past six months increased to a whopping 2.54 billion Euro on overall revenue of 9.82 billion Euros. The average occupancy stood at an impressive 95-96%. The airline benefited from the early delivery of new aircraft which are also considerably more fuel efficient than older planes. Ancillary charges from bags and priority boarding etc also continued to grow as is the tendency with Low-Cost Airlines.

What will be interesting is what happens to the financials when Ryanair “pulls” some 2.75 million seats out of the German, French and Spanish markets due to spats with the respective local authorities re airport costs. Logic would say this is a big hole to fill that would cost them revenue down the line. However, might it just be that the planes from these routes will simply be moved to far more profitable routes where better yields can be extracted?  Ryanair can be called many things but they are not stupid.

That said, the Irish airline has found itself in a spot of bother at Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands where the airport authorities lost patience with Ryanair and revoked two slots held by the carrier for the next simmer season: end March – end October. The airport authorities pointed to 30 late flights during three months of the summer season from the cities of Pisa and wait for it, Sofia. The airline has already had a court appeal re-buffed so is taking its case to the European Commission. The bottom line is that Sofia might be losing a busy route to the Netherlands next year!

TAPing up the Market

Its official, finally; Lufthansa wants to buy yet another airline. This time it has Portuguese national carrier TAP in its sights. The logic would be that TAP can open up and indeed expand the Lufthansa Group of airlines access to the South American market.

As a recap of history, Lufthansa in recent times has acquired Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Brussels Airlines and more recently a chunk (on its way to full control) of ITA , the successor in Italy to Alitalia.

The Lufthansa Group are also throwing im the carrot of opening a Lufthansa Technik base in Porto with employment for 1000 technicians. Lufthansa Technik will be familiar to many people as its has a large presence at Sofia Airport.

Last Sanctuary to Disappear

Remember the Covid days when the new pastime was watching Starlink Satellites march across the skies like a regiment of soldiers? If they were seen as a novelty factor back then, their usefulness is perhaps only now being felt by the public at large; Ukraine excepted.  Following on from Air France and Virgin Atlantic, British Airways has signed a deal with SpaceX’s Starlink to bring free wifi to every passenger cabin starting in 2026. This will apply to both long haul and short haul flights.

Air France have already started their roll out using Starlink and aim to have all their fleet fully equipped by 2027. Virgin meanwhile will have their long-haul fleet equipped from Q3 next year. In Europe, AirBaltic were actually the first airline to bring the technology to every seat on its A220 fleet.

Whether extending free wifi to the skies is a good thing or not is another question. Taking a flight was one of the few sanctuaries that one could escape the barrage of excessive use of the internet et al. What this does show however is that wifi whilst travelling is no longer a novelty, it’s fast becoming expected.

An Open View

Nothing that emits from the USA should ever surprise people yet there is still no end to the absurdity which often seems to break ‘new ground”. This time its hard to know whether to laugh or cry at United Airlines request to a San Francisco judge to throw out a class action suit taken against it for selling window seats that had no window!

The airlines argument is that the terminology “window seat”’ doesn’t in fact mean its next to a window but that it’s on that side of the fuselage and in no way guarantees a view on its own!

The actual court decision, noting of course that this is an American court so anything can be expected, will potentially impact the commercial aviation sector in how airlines present what they are purporting to sell and what the legal position is on sales of “’ancillaries’” which often come outside the scope of the legal contract that forms part of the sale of an airline ticket! In short if the airline wins on a technicality, they will have licence to word the extra services they offer how they like without having to specify what it is they deliver.

All Aboard

The Connection between the UK and mainland Europe is a well-worn economic necessity, particular for the UK and the Channel Tunnel is a vital organ in that connection. Since it opened in May 1994, its popularity has grown and grown and the next phase of that development will see double decker trains operated by Eurostar.

Some 50 double decker 540-seater train, each stretching 200m in length and carrying around 540 passengers have been ordered, a 20% increase on the current seat capacity per train. Interestingly, if tethered together to stretch 400m in length they will be able to carry 1080 seats per service though the issue for this might be the length of the station platforms. The trains will also be able to operate on the wider rail networks of all five countries Eurostar serves; France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. 97% of the components used to build the fleet will be recyclable with 25% made form already recycled materials.

The bad news though is don’t expect to see them anytime soon as they won’t appear in service until 2031 with just six entering service that year.

Another snippet of potential interest is that Eurostar is now also the first non-airline partner of Skyteam which means passengers of Air France-KLM will be able to enjoy seamless connections between the air and rail element.

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