site.btaMultiple Emergency Flights Bring Bulgarians Back from Middle East Countries

Multiple emergency flights Thursday brought Bulgarians back home from various countries in the Middle East where they were stranded by the disruption of air traffic amid the ongoing escalation. The flights arrived with a total of 706 passengers, according to the official accounts. 

Two flights carrying Bulgarian tourists from Dubai and Abu Dhabi landed at the Vasil Levski Sofia Airport on the night to Thursday, the Transport and Communications Ministry and the airport said. The government aircraft took around 90 passengers home from Abu Dhabi. The second flight, operated by the airlines GullivAir, landed at 03:32 a.m. local time with 326 Bulgarian passengers.

According to Sofia Airport website, a FlyDubai flight landed at Sofia at 01:32 a.m. local time on Thursday.

A Bulgarian Air flight with Bulgarian tourists from Oman and Dubai is expected to land in Sofia at 17:50 p.m. on Thursday.

Two Bulgaria Air flights brought Bulgarian tourists back to Sofia from Oman and Dubai Thursday evening. One plane took off from Oman’s Salalah International Airport and landed in Sofia at 18:01 Bulgarian time with 110 passengers on board. Of these, 74 were on a charter flight of the airline, and the rest are included in a list of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The second plane departed from Dubai with 180 passengers, landing at Sofia Airport at around 7:50 p.m.

The first Bulgarian tourists to fly back from Dubai since the start of the conflict landed at Varna Airport on Wednesday.

Bulgarian tour operators and travel agencies complained over what they describe as a lack of coordination, transparency and timely institutional response to the crisis following the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East on February 28.

Emerging from a meeting of the Security Council at the Council of Ministers concerning the situation in the Middle East on Thursday, Foreign Minister Nadezhda Neynsky told the press that the evacuation of Bulgarian citizens from the conflict zone in the Middle East is continuing, and at this stage it is proceeding in a highly organized way.

Responding to media reports about suspension of Bulgarian State-organized evacuation flights from the Middle East, the Foreign Ministry Thursday said that it was organizing another flight to the United Arab Emirates, which is expected to take off "as soon as possible".

The European Commission has announced that it has begun organizing evacuation flights for European citizens in the Middle East as of Wednesday. The first six flights will bring citizens back to Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, and Slovakia, a press release said.  Additional flights under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism are planned in the coming days, with more EU Member States expressing their willingness to participate, the Commission said. All possible steps have been taken to ensure the safety of EU citizens. By Thursday, ten countries had activated the mechanism: Bulgaria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, and Austria, the press release added.