Bulgarian airlines are ready to transport stranded domestic tourists in the Middle East. This was announced for TravelNews by the Minister of Tourism Irena Georgieva. “The moment we receive a corridor, we will immediately react and send planes to bring our citizens home”, she emphasized.
“Bulgaria Air” has a plane based at the Dubai airport, which will transport the tour operator groups, as a charter has been organized. The airline is also ready to redirect a plane from Oman to Dubai, Georgieva said. According to her, “Bulgaria Air” can send two more planes from Sofia to bring Bulgarians back to the United Arab Emirates.
Another Bulgarian airline - GullivAir, is also ready to provide a plane. It has a large Airbus A330. Irena Georgieva added that the State Aviation Operator can also send the government plane Airbus A319-112, which has about 90 seats.
There is a backlog of Bulgarian citizens who have missed their flights. The crisis headquarters is in contact with both the state aviation operator and "Bulgaria Air" and GullivAir, which have declared capacity for possible flights that can be used to return Bulgarian citizens, Nikolay Vanchev, director of the "Consular Relations" Directorate, said earlier today. at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) at a briefing of the Crisis Staff regarding the situation in the Middle East.
So far, they have stated that there are over 1,400 domestic tourists in the Middle East. Some of them are with tour operators, and the rest are on individual programs. “We are also identifying the hotels where the people are staying, by collecting their names”, Irena Georgieva also pointed out. The Ministry of Tourism is in constant contact with tour operators, who are also assisting individual tourists.