Bulgarian Air Charter was founded in 2000 and initially started operations with five Tupolev TU-154s from Soviet production. From 2004 the MD-82 was flown in, later followed by the Airbus A320. According to its own information, the company, which has been operating under the European Air Charter since May of this year, operates ten MD-82s and seven Airbus A320s. For the first time, exactly 20 years ago, in the summer of 2001, the airline carried out charter flights from Vienna to Varna for ITS Billa Reisen (now BILLA Reisen). Orders from Alltours, ETI, FTI and TUI to other destinations followed.
Three years ago, in 2018, a machine was stationed in Linz for the first time over the summer. Overall, Bulgarian Air Charter flew sun-hungry holidaymakers south from Vienna, Linz, Graz and Salzburg. Incidentally, the airline has not had a single fatal accident to date, which speaks for the quality of maintenance and high pilot standards.
The corona pandemic also left its mark on Bulgarian Air Charter / European Air Charter. If more than 52 destinations were flown to before the crisis, this year’s flight plan has been massively thinned out. The airline is not represented at all from Salzburg and Vienna this year, there are only flights from Linz and Graz. The flight plan includes the islands of Crete (Heraklion), Karpathos, Corfu, Kos, Larnaca, Mallorca, Zakynthos and Rhodes. The flights from Graz are also carried out with the MD-82 stationed in Linz. In order to ensure a high level of technical clarity, in addition to pilots and flight attendants, a dedicated team of technicians is stationed in Linz, which is committed after every flight and takes care of the MD-82 with great attention to detail.
The machine currently still stationed in Linz is the LZ-LDJ. The aircraft was delivered to the Italian Alitalia in February 1995 and taken over by Bulgarian Air Charter in June 2013.
From next week, however, the 164-seat MD-82 will be – to the chagrin of the Planespotter and aviation fans – replaced by an A320 with 180 seats, which also uses less fuel and is therefore more economical to operate.
According to Bulgarian Air Charter / European Air Charter, it employs 435 people, including around 90 pilots and 100 flight attendants.
Around 150 MD-80s still in service
The MD-80 was introduced at the end of the 1970s as a further development of the DC-9 series under the name DC-9 Super 80, but later renamed the MD-80. There were the models MD-81/82/83/88 and the MD-87 with a shortened fuselage. 1,191 copies were made between 1979 and 1999. In Austria, the DC-9 and later the MD-80 formed the backbone of the AUA fleet for more than 30 years. Of the almost 1,200 units built, around 150 are still in flight around the world today.
In addition to European Air Charter (Buglarian Air Charter), ALK Airlines, also from Bulgaria, the Ukrainian Bravo Airways and Danish Air Transport planes of the MD-80 series operate a Europe.
Fotoimpressionen:
Text & Photos: P. Huber
– .