Airport employees in the Black Sea city of Bourgas will stage a silent protest against the airport management on November 4 2008 starting at 2.30pm, Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily said.

Employees are protesting against staff cuts and reductions in their salaries. According to Dnevnik, every Friday workers have been receiving letters informing them about who would be dismissed the following Monday. Airport employees, quoted in Dnevnik, say this began a couple of weeks ago. Additionally, salaries have gone down markedly as well as all other incentives - for food, clothing, night shifts etc.

The protest will coincide with negotiations the airport concessionaire Fraport Twin Star Airport Management is having with trade unions on the new frame work agreement. The talks are scheduled to take place in the other big Black Sea city of Varna where Fraport also run the airport.

Bulgarian-German consortium Fraport Twin Star Airport Management won the 35-year concession to manage the two airports in 2007 when it pledged to invest 403 million euro in modernising them.

In September 2008 the consortium said that the two airports will have new passenger terminals by 2011. The terminals will cost more than 65 million euro, more than half of which, 36 million euro, will be spent on Bourgas Airport.

A further 26 million euro will be spent on Varna Airport and seven million euro will go to design and project management.

Fraport Twin Star Airport Management said that Bourgas Airport will have a larger and more expensive terminal because of the larger tourist numbers and bed capacity of the southern Black Sea coast.

The airport serviced 1.6 million passengers in the first eight months of 2008. Fraport will launch the procedure to select the main contractor by the end of September, with construction set to start in mid-2009.