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Outbound Sofia Airport Flights Take Off from Plovdiv

Several major outbound flights of Bulgaria Air that were originally supposed to take off from the Sofia International Airport will set off from the southern city of Plovdiv.

Most outbound flights have been cancelled and most inbound flights have been redirected to Plovdiv or airports in neighbouring countries such as Bucharest as the Sofia Airport was covered by thick fog on Wednesday.

The Bulgaria Air company has transported by bus the passengers for flights FB431 Sofia-Paris, FB405 Sofia-Brussels, FB807 Sofia-Athens, and FB449 Sofia-Rome to the Plovdiv Airport, some 130 km south east of Sofia.

The four above-mentioned flights are expected to take off from the Plovdiv Airport at 5 pm Wednesday.

Only three Bulgaria Air planes took off from Sofia on Wednesday – to Amsterdam, Rome, and Vienna.

Not a single plane had landed in Sofia by 1 pm on Wednesday because of the fog. A single flight from Budapest landed in the afternoon using the blind-landing system of the Sofia Airport for "
blind landing"
in fog.

The Bulgaria Air flights from Brussels and Frankfurt landed in Plovdiv as did a Wizz Air flight from Valencia. Lufthansa flights from Frankfurt and Munich, and a Wizz Air flight from Madrid landing in Bucharest, while a Bulgaria Air flight from London Luton was initially directed to Thessaloniki in Greece, and from there to Bulgaria's Burgas.

According to representatives of the airport, the runway has been properly cleaned of ice, and the Class 3A blind landing system is up and running but it can be used only by pilots, which have been specially trained for the purpose.

The government plane of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his delegation, which is expected to come home after a three-day visit to Lebanon, is also going to land in Plovdiv.

According to the initial weather forecasts, the fog over the Sofia Airport was supposed to disappear by 10:30 am but that has proven not to be the case.

[size=55:3tpdrbd2]Focus news 22 December 2010

Currently Sofia airport performs neither landings nor taking off. That is what operating officer at Sofia Airport Nikolai Kabakchiev announced ,
In his words situation at the airport remains unchanged from since this morning. The fog is thick. Visibility is reduced. Changing weather patterns are expected as early as tomorrow afternoon.
Currently, all taking offs are cancelled at Sofia airport. Flights were diverted to airports in Plovdiv, Burgas, Thessaloniki, Bucharest. Redirection is made in the view of the airlines.
Passengers who are to use the air transport must communicate with the airline they will fly with. Some airlines provide transportation to the airport from which the air plane will take off. All information that airlines provide is published on the website of Sofia Airport.
"
Media pressure that is exerted on airlines to land planes is not good, because safety is first and foremost,"
Kabakchiev said.

Arriving flights:
- Aeroflot, Moscow-11, 40, landed in Bucharest
- Easy Jet, London / Luton -11:30, landed in Thessaloniki
- Lufthansa, Frankfurt-12: 50, landed in Belgrade
- Polish Airlines, Warsaw -13:55, landed in Burgas
- Air France, Paris / Charles de Gaulle -14:05, landed in Plovdiv
- Czech Airlines, Prague-14: 25, landed in Plovdiv
- Bulgaria Air, Amsterdam-14: 10, landed in Burgas
- Cyprus Airways Larnaca-15: 00, landed in Thessaloniki
- Lufthansa, Düsseldorf-15: 00, landed in Burgas. Passengers will be transported to Sofia by bus.

Departing flights:
- Bulgaria Air London / Heathrow - 14.25
- Easy Jet, Madrid - 14.54
Meteorological conditions at Sofia Airport are dynamic.

[size=150:3dzl5h8f]BRITISH AIRWAYS

Dear Mr* ******,

As you will be aware, British Airways has been affected by severe weather conditions that have swept across the UK and much of Europe.

As a valued customer, we wanted to explain what action we are taking to mitigate.

Severe weather was forecast for Saturday December 18 and we took the decision to cancel much of our flight programme. We took this action early so we could immediately communicate with customers. Although we were criticised in some quarters it was proven the right call as Heathrow was subsequently closed for 20 hours.

Until late yesterday, only one runway at Heathrow had reopened, meaning we were restricted by the BAA to only running one-third of our flight programme.

But where are we now? We will aim to operate the vast majority of flights from Heathrow on Thursday, however, we now have hundreds of crew and over 40 planes out of position so it will take some days to return to normal.

Throughout this period of disruption we have extended our call centre opening times and added extra phone lines to deal with the 150,000 calls we've received – that's double what we would normally expect. BA.com has been regularly updated with the latest information and has three times its usual traffic. We have mobilised 1,000 volunteers to assist our customers either at the airport or over the phone and arranged thousands of hotel rooms for our customers.

I do however appreciate that the unprecedented level of disruption has meant that we have not been able to help all of our customers in the way that they, or we, would have liked and I would like to say a sincere thank you for your patience and understanding during what has been a very difficult time.

We would offer the following advice to customers who are due to travel:
Please do not travel to the airport unless you have a confirmed booking on a flight that is operating
If you are booked to travel in the next few days and your flight has been affected, you can manage your booking via ba.com or call our call centre team. We would like to apologise in advance for the extended call waiting times, given the very high call volumes we are currently experiencing
If you are travelling from Heathrow and your travel is not essential and/or you have the flexibility to change your plans, please could you consider canceling your flight in return for a full refund or changing it to another date in the next 12 months
If your travel is not imminent please can we ask that you contact us at a later date as we are trying to do everything we can for our customers who have been disrupted and/or who are due to travel in the next few days
For the latest information and updates please visit ba.com or follow us on Twitter @British_Airways
We know how important it is for our customers to be with their friends or family at this time of year and please be assured that we will do everything possible to help them.

Yours sincerely,


Willie Walsh
CEO British Airways

[size=55:40p9mewc]novinite 23 December 2010

Sofia International Airport Cancels Flights

Sofia International Airport has announced it had cancelled several departing and arriving flights, scheduled for Thursday.

Five flights, departing from Sofia International Airport at 7:10 am for Munich were cancelled.

Two flights that were expected to arrive from Bucharest to Sofia at 10:05 am were also cancelled.

Four other arriving flights of the carrier Regasus, scheduled to land at the Sofia International Airport from Istanbul at 7:20, were delayed. The situation is the same for two Bulgaria Air flights arriving to Sofia from the Black Sea cities of Burgas and Varna at 8:20 am and for a flight of Olympic Air, that was scheduled to arrive from Athens at 9 am.

According to the airport’s website, flights to Frankfurt and Prague were also cancelled.

Problems with the flights started several days ago, initially because of the bad weather in Western Europe, and since yesterday – because of the thick fog in Sofia.

Here is an updated just found on the Wizz air website

Important information about UK Maestro and Solo debit cards payments
Accordingly to the ongoing withdrawal of UK Maestro and UK Solo debit cards Wizz Air will stop accepting these cards as of 4 December 2010.
Payments with UK Maestro and UK Solo will only be accepted until 3 December 2010.
Wizz Air will continue to accept payments with VISA, MasterCard, UATP and Wizz Air co-branded cards (currently only available in Hungary and Romania).

Re: Payment methods Bank transfer Has anyone done a bank transfer payment?

Oddy