When the next president of Bulgaria begins his term after the October 22 elections, he might as well start looking for available flights for 2007.
The country’s official state aircraft - TU-154 - faces a ban from operating in EU airspace after March 28 next year.
The Russian-made TU-154 is part of close to 70 Bulgarian aircraft that do not have EU-standard certificates. The problem threatens to deeply affect the country’s cargo and agricultural aircraft industry. The 70 planes are equal to a third of Bulgaria’s fleet.
Earlier this week, media reports hinted that a Brussels executive intends to ask the EU Aviation Safety Committee (EASA) to include Bulgarian companies on its blacklist.
The last European Commission (EC) monitoring report on Bulagrian readiness to join the EU said corrective measures had to be taken immediately to improve the airworthiness, maintenance, operations and flight crew licensing of Bulgarian planes.
EASA and the EU’s Joint Aviation Authority have discovered substantial lapses in Bulgarian aviation safety. The problem is particularly dire because the EU’s deadlines for Bulgaria to standardise its vehicles are close to the end of the year. The fact that even the official aircraft of the Bulgarian state is lacking an EU safety certificate is evidence of neglect of those requirements.
On October 9, Transport and Communications Minister Petar Moutafchiev admitted that local air carriers will not be able to meet all safety targets and certification requirements by the end of the year when the period expires. As an emergency measure, Moutafchiev said the Government would ask the EC to extend the end-2006 deadline for meeting aviation safety standards by three months.
While cargo carriers have more chances to resolve their problems by the end of the year, aircraft used for agricultural purposes were far from meeting EU requirements.
On October 5, Moutafchiev told Parliament that Bulgarian aviation had to solve 59 problems to be given access to European airspace. He offered information on the fulfilment of the EC’s recommendations on airport and civil aviation safety.
“The Bulgarian Aviation Administration is subject to a review on October 26 and you should know that it has not been inspected since May 2005,” Moutafchiev said.
Bulgaria’s Civil Aviation Administration Directorate General (CAADG) was working to introduce the entire system required by the EASA so that the certificates issued by Bulgarian administration could be recognised.
EC officials inspected Bulgaria Air, Hemus Air and Scorpion Air, as well as cargo companies, training centres and technical facilities, CAADG head Georgi Stoyanov told Parliament. Problems were identified only in cargo air carriers and agricultural aviation, including 22 Russian-made air craft (An-12, An-24 and An-26) that failed to meet EU requirements and held no type of certificate.
“Talks are under way and I am convinced that the time frame for issuing such a certificate will be extended,” Stoyanov said.
As of October 1, Bulgarian civil aviation had no Tu-5, Tu-3 and Yak-40 passenger aircraft, which were already a thing of the past, Stoyanov said.
Bulgaria filed its application to join the EU more than 10 years ago. After the EC’s September 26 monitoring report, the country is to join the EU on January 1 2007.
Many questioned why Bulgaria was surprised by EU safety regulations three months before the accession date when Sofia has been conducting negotiations with Brussels on these issues for the past 10 years.
Air carriers blame the Transport and Communications Ministry, which they say failed to communicate certification risks. But both state and air company officials claim that previous EC reports never indicated a ban was possible.
History shows a different picture.
Back in 2003, all Bulgarian air carriers were informed of EU certification requirements. At present, 860 aircraft in Europe hold no certificate. Bulgarian planes account for a very small proportion of those craft, Stoyanov said, admitting that the findings of the EC September 26 report were not that of a surprise. After the September 26 report was published and the air ban became real, everyone suddenly decided to join efforts and tackle the problem.
Business and state officials met on October 5 to discuss their response to the crisis. An action plan was proposed by Deputy Transport and Communications Minister Krasimira Martinova. According to the action plan, CAADG was to be replaced by a foreign aviation administration, thus unofficially admitting that CAADG was not doing its job correctly.
However, speaking to the Parliamentary committee on transport and communications, Moutafchiev said that he had refused this “easy solution” and had urged CAADG to overcome the problems in its work.
Martinova’s proposal mirrored the experience of Cyprus officials, who abolished that country’s aviation administration.
Bulgarian-language media reports claim that adopting Cyprus’ approach to aircraft certification was discussed by European Integration Minister Meglena Kouneva and Matthias Ruete, directorate general for Energy and Transport with the EC.
The two officials met on September 6 to discuss the situation with Bulgaria’s fleet.
According to reports of the meeting, Ruete told Kouneva that Cyprus’s example could be one of Bulgaria’s ways out of the nearing crisis. However, with Moutafchiev’s refusal to do that, Bulgarian air companies can only hope that CAADG would find ways to quickly reorganise and do something about meeting the EU criteria.
Closing CAADG would mean that its staff would loose their jobs. As an alternative and emergency measure, Moutafchiev said the Government would ask the EC to extend the end-2006 deadline for meeting aviation safety standards by three months. Moutafchiev even said that another 18 people would be employed by CAADG to overcome the lack of administrative resources.
While the Transport and Communications Ministry is trying to get out of this dead end, the Bulgarian-language news website Mediapool cited sources claiming that the main Bulgarian air cargo companies are planning to move their business to neighbouring Serbia and thus outside the EU. The cargo companies have decided to set up a joint company that would be registered outside EU air space.
Another step planned by the companies is to sue the ministry for the negative impact on their business if the situation remains unchanged.
However, the problem remains: EASA doesn’t accept safety certificates issued by CAADG.
More than 800 million euro has been invested in fleet renovation for the past four years in Bulgaria, according to reports in the Bulgarian-language media.
The bankruptcy of state-owned Balkan Airlines in 2002 in practice liquidated the Bulgarian aviation industry.
At present there are two airlines that perform regular international flights: Bulgaria Air and Hemus Air. The other companies are charter and cargo carriers.
The total volume of the Bulgarian aviation market amounts to 450-500 million euro a year, 60 per cent of it due to foreign airlines. Local carriers have a total of 40 aircraft for regular, charter and cargo flights.
Joining the EU means larger market opportunities for Bulgarian carriers, but this also means stronger competition. Predictions are that Bulgarian aviation market would soon be flooded by low-cost airlines, which will displace the Bulgarian air carriers. The directors of the airports in Sofia, Bourgas and Varna meet every week with managers of low-cost carriers requesting to be granted airport access and service.
Currently two low-cost airlines operate officially on the Bulgarian market: Hungary’s Wizz Air and Slovakia’s SkyEurope.
But just two months after Bulgaria joined the Single European Sky Agreement, interest in Bulgaria as a destination has been demonstrated by more than 10 new such companies.
In an interview with Bulgarian-language Pari daily, the executive director of the Bourgas airport, Kalin Barzov, says that he have had talks with six low-cost carriers willing to fly to Bourgas airport. These included Germany’s Germanings, Czech Smart Wings, Danish Sterling, and Norwegian Air Shuttle. The same companies have inquired about the airport in Varna as well.
The biggest European company in this segment, EasyJet, is also expected to start flying to Bulgaria. Negotiations have been already held and Bulgaria will be soon officially listed as a destination.
The executive director of the Sofia airport, Plamen Stanchev, told Pari that talks had been held with more than five low-cost airlines. These include another big European player, Ireland’s Ryanair, as well as Morocco’s Atlas Blue, Denmark’s Sterling and Britain’s Jet2.
With such foreign air companies interested in Bulgaria, local air carriers face difficult times ahead.
The fact that there has been no co-operation between business and state officials which resulted in the findings of the EC report might threaten if not the whole Bulgarian aviation industry but the cargo and agricultural one.
