About 100 airport employees from the Black Sea city of Bourgas staged a silent protest against Fraport Twin Star Airport Management, on November 4 2008, Bulgarian Focus news agency said.

Employees were protesting against their uncertain future, Stoicho Minchev from KNSB trade union told Focus. Earlier in the day Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily said that employees were protesting against cuts in staff salaries. According to Dnevnik, every Friday workers were receiving letters informing them about who would be dismissed the following Monday.

Dnevnik said the process had begun two weeks ago. Salaries have also declined markedly as well as all other incentives for food, clothing and night shifts.

At the protest, however, Focus found it difficult to talk to employees who refused to comment on why they were outside the administration building. At the time of the protest Fraport Twin Star Airport Management's board was in session discussing the new framework agreement that has to be signed with trade unions, Minchev said. The current agreement expires on November 10 2008.

The concessionaire was suggesting keeping the current level of salaries, 990 leva a month on average for Bourgas airport, but cutting bonuses. "Nothing has been decided yet," Minchev told Focus and noted that on November 6 trade unions will discuss with their members how to proceed in negotiations.

Bulgarian-German consortium Fraport Twin Star Airport Management won the 35-year concession on managing the airports at the two Black Sea cities of Varna and Bourgas in 2007 when it pledged to invest 403 million euro towards their modernisation.

In September 2008 the consortium said that the two airports would 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.

An additional 26 million euro will be spent on Varna Airport and seven million euro will go towards design and project management.

Fraport Twin Star Airport Management said that Bourgas Airport would have a larger and more expensive terminal because of larger tourist numbers and the greater 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 a procedure to select the main contractor by the end of September, with construction set to start in mid-2009.