Sofia Airport

✅ Trip Verified | I had the rudest and the most aggressive inspector of my bags in my life, and I have travelled hundreds of thousands of miles. Everything turned on the definition of "electronic device." Apparently, this fellow thought that a battery pack/emergency charge was "electronic," as was a camera. Finally, I asked to speak to a supervisor because this fellow's demeanor was extremely aggressive. That only slightly moderated his behavior. His supervisor was fine.

✅ Verified Review | Terrible organisation. The airport is unable to handle the negligible amount of passengers that pass through it (there are only 2 security checkpoints for all passengers). Waiting times are ridiculous. I arrived two hours before my flight with a single carry-on bag and no luggage to check-in and I barely made to my flight. If there is more than 1 flight leaving within the same hour, I would suggest you get there 3 hours early. International Airport? No way.

✅ Verified Review | The airport is ok with good connections to the city. I am writing this review just to point out how rude the custom officers were bearing in mind I am travelling from an EU to another EU country using an EU ID. Both on arrival and departure they made fun of my picture and when I handled my European driving licence in order to prove it was me they didn't even check and told me to not come again with these documents. Note: I have travelled with the same ID to: Turkey, Italy, Germany, UK, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Czech Republic without any kind of a problem.

✅ Verified Review | Flew into Sofia using Ryanair, so that's Terminal 2. Ryanair tend to use the remote stands for its aircraft so not surprised as we were on a bus. The bus was old and didn't feature air-conditioning. Collecting luggage was swift and passport control was swift too, a simple visual check of my passport. Landside, there is an ATM that dispenses Bulgarian Lev and WiFi which is free to use and I found it to be quite useful as my roaming wouldn't work. There's a taxi rank, which I'd avoid as taxi drivers aren't usually the most trustworthy. There's a direct connection to the metro, which is cheap as chips as well as a connection to T1 although this stops in the early evening. Arriving was a pleasant surprise. Departing is the same affair, lots of check in desks although I didn't need to use them. I had about 10 hours to kill before my flight so went airside. Security was good and swift and immigration was quick too. I even got a stamp in my passport when I asked. Airside, there isn't much apart from duty free with cheap cigarettes, a hand made cigar shop with cigars made to order and a few bars with overpriced beer. A pint of Kamenitza about 8lv, which I find a little pricey. There's a few mobile charging points in the terminal too. Be advised that the toilets can be untidy sometimes and smell a bit. There's 3 lounges and all are equally as mediocre as each other although, the Swissport lounge is the nicest. Another lounge has a smoking room too. Boarding was swift, although it can be busy in the evening when about 5 flights depart in quick succession so seating can be an issue at the gate. The terminal can get a little stuffy too as aircon isn't great. If you have a long wait in Terminal 2, you won't have much to do although it is a clean, pleasant experience. Travelling into Sofia, you haven't got a choice but the airport is decent enough.

✅ Verified Review | The airport is usually quite fast, has enough seating and free wifi. Recently Ryanair have started using the main terminal (2), which has started to create longer lines at security and passport control. There are no priority lines for either security or passport control. The lounges at the airport are okay, though the downstairs lounge often smells of smoke from the adjacent smoking lounge.

Clean, modern airport with plenty of seating and adequate amenities, less than twenty minutes from the centre of Sofia on the metro train. Signage slightly confusing, going through security was a breeze though, staff polite and efficient. Recommended.

I've been visiting Sofia for over 20 years and compared to the miserable pit that the airport used to be, todays airport (Terminal 2) is a vast improvement. Even so, it doesn't mean it is a pleasant experience. The Metro connection in and out is great as it eliminates the predatory cab drivers, but once you are inside the terminal itself things begin to unravel quickly. The layout is bad, the signage is poor, and much of the staff speaks no English. I speak decent Bulgarian so that is not an issue for me, but other travelers were clearly suffering due to poor communication. The lines for the security checks were ridiculous and a pat-down was mandatory for everyone, even if they didn't trigger the metal detector. Toss in the fact that the guy patting me down did not understand the need for deodorant made for an unpleasant experience. Every line lead to another line which ended up being a series of long and pointless delays. The seating in the terminal was uncomfortable and to this day there are not sufficient toilets. All in all, mediocre to the point that I'll often times land in Istanbul and take the bus into Sofia ($26).

Sofia Airport was great overall. In the past years, the airport has been renovated and renewed in so many different ways. Staff were really nice, easy to find your way around. Food was a little high-priced. Bathrooms were not very clean. Overall, I recommend going through this airport.

Sofia Airport Terminal 1 is terrible, extremely unpleasant toilets - bad smell, no toilet paper, no soap, two cubicles for the entire terminal. Inside the terminal building, there was not enough seating, long queues at each gate as a result and the worst part was that the air conditioning didn't seem to be working properly so it was extremely stuffy and warm inside, and this is in June. I hate to imagine what it would be like later on in the summer when the outside temperatures were hotter. This terminal needs to be refurbished, otherwise I would recommend avoiding flying out from there. Arriving - not so much of a problem because you normally get through quite quickly.

I fly often from Sofia Airport - the staff are nice, but there is not a big choice of things to buy from the duty free. There are 3 lounges and I recommend you the Vitosha Lounge, which is for Star Alliance and Bulgaria Air passengers. There are not many people traveling from Sofia, so it's not really full and the lines are short. One bad thing is that it does not have priority fast track for business class passengers.