Bulgaria Air

Bulgaria Air (Bulgarian name: България Ер) is the national airline carrier of Bulgaria, based in the capital, Sofia. It operates scheduled services to 21 countries in Western Europe, Israel and Russia. Its main base is Sofia Airport. Bulgaria Air owns two additional airlines, Hemus Air and Viaggio Air. The two airlines operate only as Bulgaria Air and will eventually become merged into Bulgaria Air.

The airline was established in 2002 as a successor to the insolvent Balkan Bulgarian Airlines.
By order of the Minister of Transportation and Communications it was declared the flag carrier in November 2002, starting operations on 4 December 2002. The name and logo were determined by a public competition.
Bulgaria Air was privatized in 2006; although it was rumoured that the government wanted to sell the carrier to a major foreign investor, a union of locally-owned companies, led by Hemus Air, emerged as the buyer with Italian Air One being the only other contender.

Hemus Air reportedly paid €6.6m and promised to invest a further €86m over the next five years.

Since then all flights of Hemus Air and its subsidiary Viaggio Air are under the Bulgaria Air IATA code FB. It is seeking since last year to acquire up to 15 new aircraft to expand activities in Bulgaria as a result. Among these new aircraft will be at least one capable of a trans-atlantic flight to get the company moving and to open trans-continental routes.

On 20 November 2008, Bulgaria Air became a full member of IATA.

Address:	Sofia
Website:	www.air.bg/en