site.btaUPDATED License of Ground Operator of Vasil Levski Airport, Swissport Bulgaria, to Be Temporarily Revoked

The license of the ground operator of the capital's Vasil Levski Airport, Swissport Bulgaria, will be temporarily revoked, Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Grozdan Karadjov said after an inspection of the Sofia airport in connection with the case of the 300 passengers from a flight from London who were stranded in a jet bridge for almost an hour on Friday.

Karadjov wants the resignation of the secretary general of the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) over unfulfilled orders of the minister. There will be other sanctions, the Deputy Prime Minister said. He added that the criteria for the quality of service at the airport should be ready by Monday.

“I apologise to all passengers and members of the public who have suffered from poor service. Swissport's licence will be suspended on Monday, and their work will be taken over by the other operators. There will be new tendering procedures - we will not tolerate any more incompetence,” the Minister said.

Suspension of the license is the next gradation of penalties. A reasonable period of time will be given for Swissport's work to be taken over by the other operators. "This is the third misdemeanour, we are done with fines and we are starting with the real penalties," the Deputy Prime Minister was adamant. The eventual next step is a definitive revocation of the licence and new tendering procedures.

The Transport Minister also said that last Monday he had ordered the CAA Secretary General to increase the maximum fine threshold tenfold under the Airport and Ground Handling Operators Ordinance and to do so by 5:00 p.m. on the same day, but there is no such report. "What we have gathered here for today might not have happened if a responsible state official had done his job. The same will follow for any ground operator who does not do his job conscientiously," Karadjov assured.

He pointed out that the issue of the flight on Friday took place due to inadequate behaviour of the ground operator. For more than 50 minutes their employee could not find out what should be done and the people were forced to call 112.

"I think that for the first time in Bulgarian history such a punishment is being imposed, but the time has come for the state and the institutions to show that there is statehood and the rules are being respected," Karadjov said.

Karadjov reported significant weaknesses in the actions of the CAA, which operates under the Transport Ministry. It also appears that the ground operators operate only under a licence issued by the CAA, they have no contract with the airport operator, nor any special document other than their contracts with the airlines, the Minister said. This excludes them from any possibility of being controlled by the CAA, and since this control is obviously underestimated, the executive director of the agency, Anelia Marinova, has been instructed to submit a report by the end of the day on Monday with all the measures that the Agency intends to take with regard to Bulgarian citizens and visitors to the country.

Karadjov noted that there has already been a problem twice with the ground operators - first, after an inspection, they received prescriptions with which they did not comply. Second - fines were imposed on them. Last Monday, during an operational meeting with the Minister, the CAA's Chief Secretary was instructed, as the Director General Anelia Marinova was on a business trip at the time, to submit a report by the end of the day, which was not submitted, so this Sunday the Minister has asked for his resignation and the Chief Secretary will be dismissed on Monday.

By the end of Monday, a second report should be submitted - which are the violated procedures so far in the CAA and which are the guilty officials who will also be held accountable.

The inspections will be weekly until there is a service pattern in place and as many more licences are revoked as necessary so that passengers' rights are not violated, Karadjov said.

"When it is allowed for passengers to stay locked in one room, it means there are no innocents - neither CAA, nor SOF Connect, nor the ground operators. This shows that there is chaos," Karadzhov said. He stressed that on Monday there should be a clear order - who will be accountable to whom and how, so that from now on there is a clear chain of command.

Anelia Marinova reported that the CAA has not done its job completely. "We were involved in the communication between the ground and airport operators to assist in signing agreements," she explained. "The fact is that the airport operator does not have the tools to influence the ground operators, while we at the General Administration do. This procedure has not been completed, we have agreed on the parameters of the agreements, but the signing has not been requested to be completed, for which we will be held responsible," she added.

Karadjov also said that in February, the operator of the capital's airport, SOF Connect, submitted a request to validate and impose minimum quality conditions on ground operators - for falling floors on buses, air conditioning, courtesy, passenger assistance, adequate training of the employees themselves, which to date has not been done. This has been stuck on CAA desks since February and will be held to account next week, the Transport Minister promised.

"I am unhappy that for the third time I am dealing with the ground operators, which is already too much," the Minister said. Bulgarian citizens have the right to receive the same service as at other airports around the world, he insisted.

Regarding the Sofia airport operator, Karadjov pointed out that there is an architectural problem because there is no way to mix the two flows - Schengen and non-Schengen - at Terminal 2. In this regard, at first, all planes landing from third countries will stop at the jet bridge, but it will not stretch and passengers will go down the stairs to board the bus immediately, which is a significant improvement, he said. This practice will start on Monday and will be more organised and clearer, he said. At the same time, the jet bridge service will remain for departures.

In the long term, for the next five years, when Terminal 3 should be ready, the Deputy Prime Minister has ordered SOF Connect to hire an architectural firm to look at the various options of either making a glass jet bridge where non-Schengen traffic can go directly down and go to passport control, or trying an option where the Border Police counters are upstairs where passengers get off the jet bridge.

The Minister stressed that the border control is very well situated at the moment, it is working very well, passengers on the flight from London on Friday were processed in just 8 minutes.

Asena Serbezova, one of the passengers affected on Friday who submitted the alert, thanked the Minister for his quick and thorough thinking, adding that she felt satisfied because her alert led to an improvement in the airport operations.