Recently, a new startup airline has been brought to life. The Bulgarian airline, GullivAir is the said startup. Gaining its AOC only two months ago, they are intending long-haul operations around the Balkans.
Currently, the airline holds a singular 14-year-old A330-200, formerly operated by KLM, and Pakistan’s Shaheen Air, with plans to receive 2 more A330s from Turkish Airlines and to dry-lease ATR-72 turboprop aircraft. Their only A330 is pictured below:
Since the airline’s conception, the main intention was to operate flights between Sofia and New York, and have been discussing with the US Department of Transport, Federal Aviation Administration, the Transportation Security Administration, and JFK Airport to gain the green light to start flying this route.
So far, GullivAir has operated certain charter flights around the world:
In October they had operated round-trip flights to Nassau and Yangzhou
Round-trip flights between Sofia and Birmingham in December
Soon, the airline will also intend to operate charter flights between Bucharest, Punta Cana, and the Maldives. Which will be operated by Karpaten Turism, using flight numbers TJJ901 and TJJ902.
Reports also state that GullivAir is planning to operate regular flights on:
Sofia to New York JFK
Sofia to Toronto Pearson
Sofia to Delhi Indira Gandhi
This network will possibly rival Air Serbia’s Belgrade to New York route, as it is a go-to connection point for Balkan folk to reach the city, which they have benefitted from enormously, even despite the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The U.S. Department of Transportation approved GullivAir’s application to operate flights to the United States last week, so we should see them begin New York soon.
Thank you for showing attention to this airline, mate! As a Bulgarian myself, I’m quite happy that someone else paid at least a little bit of attention to that. It is indeed a really nice startup and it’s also growing quite nicely too!
From what I know, they will begin selling tickets from January of the coming year. I might hop on one of their flights and post some feedback on here about how it went ;)
Additionally, they will base one of their A330s at Bucharest for the charters to Punta Cana and the Maldives.
Hopefully, there will be more routes to exotic destinations added to their network soon, if there is enough demand, of course.
