From May 18, only one taxi company will be allowed to operate at Sofia Airport terminal 2.

A public tender to choose the company was launched on April 18.

“We published the announcement in Bulgarian-language Standart daily,” Sofia Airport media office head Krassimir Dimitrov told The Sofia Echo on May 3.

By law, such a public tender has a time line of 30 days, which in this case means that the taxi company will be selected on May 18, when the envelopes containing offers will be opened.

Dimitrov said that he could not say how many companies had applied because applications were confidential.

After May 18, only the company selected will be allowed to operate at the airport, “as is the case all over the world,” Dimitrov said.

The company operating at the old terminal 1 is OK Supertrans AD, or OK Taxi as its cars are known, Dimitrov said.

Until May 18, Dimitrov said that there was no limit to the taxi companies that could operate at terminal 2. “The only limitation is on the number of taxis that can stand outside the terminal. If at some point there are between 70 or 80 cars standing outside the terminal, then we ask the police to stop any more coming in, simply because the capacity of the parking area will not allow more cars and we do not want it jammed,” Dimitrov said.

“Sofia Airport does not have a selective policy or any kind of preference towards a certain taxi company. Until May 18, any taxi driver can have his car outside the airport as long as the number of cars allows it,” he said.

On May 4, The Sofia Echo published the story of Susan Hunsberger and her husband, both from the US, who had an unpleasant experience at the terminal on the night of April 15. The only available taxis were from Express Taxi. There was a taxi from a different company with whom she had had good experience. The driver asked for 50 euro to drive them to their home in Bistritsa. After Susan reported him to the company, it emerged that he was an impostor. She told The Sofia Echo that there was a woman at the arrivals exit who seemed to be arranging passengers for taxi drivers.

Dimitrov responded: “There is no such thing. Everyone is free to choose his or her taxi themselves”.

As for the unreasonably high prices that taxi drivers proposed, Dimitrov said that this was a matter between the taxi driver and the client. The other problem that night was that after Susan refused to pay 50 euro to the “impostor” she was not able to catch a taxi from any other company.

“The police were simply not letting any other taxis come to the taxi stand. There were travellers with their luggage running out onto the road, to catch them before they had to move on. There was no sign of a bus stop either,” Susan said.

From what Dimitrov told The Sofia Echo, Susan might have had the bad luck of 60 to 80 Express Taxi cars being at the airport at the same time. This meant that the Hunsbergers were forced to agree a price with an Express Taxi driver, which was still far more than the average price they pay for their destination.

Taxis: Our readers write...

Sir

With reference to your article Taxi Problems at Sofia Airport in the May 4 2007 edition of The Sofia Echo, I have experienced similar problems with the taxi drivers at Terminal 2 of Sofia Airport.
Last week my wife and I were returning a car to a hire company office at Terminal 2 in the middle of the day. After dropping off the car, we wanted to take a taxi to our apartment in Dianabad. We had no luggage except our cat in a travel box, but the taxi drivers who were standing around touting for business said that no one would take us with the cat, and it would cost us a fixed price of 15 leva to go to the city anyway, ie, no meter.
The drivers were obviously trying to hike up the price and put us in a position where we could not refuse their terms. Fortunately, after some time we were able to find one (lady) driver who would take us and the cat but only off-the-meter for 10 leva (normal on-the-meter price is five or six leva). We have not experienced this problem anywhere else in the city, the cat has been with us in taxis many times and always on-the-meter, so the problem appears to be solely related to the unique position that the airport has in terms of a captive clientele.
It is clear that the taxi drivers at the the new terminal are ganging up on passengers and other users of the airport and avoiding using the meter in order to pocket the exorbitant prices they charge off-the-meter. For strangers arriving here in Sofia, it leaves them with no alternative but to pay up as they have no idea of bus routes, etc. What image is this presenting to the world about Sofia and Bulgarians?
Strangely this problem never arose for us at the old Terminal 1 – is this the price of progress?
Regards,
Steve Pollard

To Sofia Airport:

I arrived in Sofia airport about two hours ago and was disgusted at the disgraceful taxi situation at your airport.
I have lived in Sofia for two years now and it is always eight leva to the Kempinski Hotel Zografski, close to where I live. First of all there was no taxi rank? or at least the taxis were not there, but driving up outside your new Terminal 2. I was quoted 50 leva, 60 leva, 40 leva for my trip to the Kempinski. There was at least 40 people outside, mostly tourists, who were complaining about being ripped off as there was no fixed pricing. I finally had to pay 30 leva for my eight leva trip to the Kempinski as it was midnight and I had no choice! My taxi driver, who spoke no English, had removed his photo ID from the car.
Bulgaria is now in the EU, they have a brand-new Terminal 2, and the first impression people have of Bulgaria is tax drivers ripping people off with 500, 600, 700 per cent overcharging for taxis!
A disgrace.
I will be very surprised to receive a reply from Sofia Airport, so I have copied my e-mail to The Sofia Echo.

Darren Carney

Sir

I arrived at the new terminal on Saturday the 5th of this month at 1.30pm.
Having been to Sofia many times, I knew the cost for a taxi to my hotel was about nine leva. I went to the taxi stand in front of the terminal and was quoted 40 leva by the first yellow taxi. I then went down the line and was quoted the same by all of the others; none would go by the meter. The only taxi that would use the meter was one of the 3.98 leva/km taxis.
There were no normal taxis companies I recognised at the airport.
For a new member of the European Union with a new terminal, this is a disgrace. My company has set up a large office in Sofia and we cannot have our people or our visiting customers exposed to this. It will hurt all businesses opening in the city.

Sincerely,
Ray Weinberg, CIO
C3i, Inc.
Living Life Sciences

Sir

I have been travelling to Sofia for 20 years.
Since the new airport (terminal) opened, sadly the management style has gone back in history. MAFIA TAXI CHAOS. For a while OK’s taxis were perfect: now no meters seem to work and price vary from 30 leva upwards to central Sofia.
Secondly, last week on arrival Bulgaria Air from London. No exchange offices open. Several foreign passengers unable to change money to pay their taxis.
The old communist shrug of shoulders answered their concerns.
Finally, when is it going to be possible to find hot food available within the airport? (At worst possible bring in a McDonald’s!)
An airport is the face of a country – what sort of face do the GOOD people of Sofia want to show?
To me the new building lacks a soul.

M Sargent