Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications

 The Minister of Transport Peter Mutafchiev signed today, from Bulgarian side, the Agreement for European Common Aviation Area (ECAA). This happened during the sitting of the EU Council “Transport, Telecommunications and Energy” in Luxembourg. Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Island, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Kingdom of Norway, Rumania, and the UN Administration in Kosovo also signed the document and joined the “Open Sky” of the European Union, under conditions specific for each country, foreseen in annexes to the Agreement.

The European Commission will prepare and send the documents to all countries, which has signed the Agreement, and will announce when it will begin to operate. The Minister of Transport Peter Mutafchiev expects the Bulgarian Parliament to ratify the Agreement for the European common aviation area within two months. 

After the ceremony Minister Mutafchiev said that the way we have chosen will change the economical environment of our air transport and will make it highly competitive. The Euro-commissar on transport Jack Baro defined the signature of the Agreement as a historical moment.

With the applying of common aviation standards and regulations in the field of security, safety, competition, the social policy and the human rights, a creation of a new type “open sky” is aimed. It will include all air transport services on the territories of 35 European countries with 400 airports and more than 500 millions of consumers.

After the Agreement already operates, the existing procedure for appointment of air carriers, obtaining of exploitation permissions, restriction of operational capacity and frequencies, co-ordination of schedules and tariffs from bilateral agreements will be no more valid.  

The Bulgarian air companies will have the right to operate with unlimited commercial rights to each point of the countries which has signed the Agreement. The expectations are, the new kind of “open sky” to bring an increase of the count of the air companies which operates to and from our country, opening of new regular airlines, growth of the passengers and freight traffic, decrease of the flight tickets prices and at least but not last it will improve the passengers attendance.

 For Additional Information:
Yasen Zarev, Press Centre,
Ministry of Transport
Phone: 940 94 85
E-Mail: yzarev@mt.government.bg