Christophe Viatte, Chief Commercial Officer of airBaltic: “The new route will offer excellent opportunities to travellers visiting the warm and sunny Varna by the Black Sea. For the upcoming summer season we will discontinue a number of routes, recording somewhat weaker demand. This move makes an aircraft capacity available for the new route.”

Konstantins Paļgovs, General Manager of Tez Tour in the Baltics: “Varna is a popular and highly demanded holiday destination for our travellers, and we are delighted to partner with airBaltic to start flights on the route.”

* Lowest return fare, including taxes, fees and service charges, on airBaltic.com, subject to availability

airBaltic will fly from Riga to Varna two times a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. Passengers will board a Boeing 737-300 aircraft for a flight that will last for 2 hours 40 minutes. Return ticket price will start at EUR 199, including airport fees and transaction costs. A full schedule of airBaltic flights can be found on the company’s homepage at airBaltic.com.

airBaltic serves over 60 destinations from its home base in Riga, Latvia. From every one of these locations, airBaltic offers convenient connections via North Hub Riga to its network spanning Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, CIS and the Middle East.

Tez Tour offers charter flight to travellers all year round. Tez Tour customers are welcome to visit Turkey, Greece, Spain, Egypt, UAE, Thailand, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Maldives, as well as skiing resorts in Austria, Italy and Andorra.

The step was announced Wednesday after a meeting of Varna Mayor Ivan Portnih and Cenk Ocal, head of Turkish Airlines for Bulgaria, according to reports of dnevnik.bg.

The Turkish air carrier plans to conduct the direct flights year-round 4 times a week, according to the press office of the Varna Municipality.

“Turkish Airlines is a leading carrier in Europe, we operate in over 200 countries, and we have the ambition to reach 2000 flights a day,” Ocal was quoted as saying after the meeting.

He argued that the new Varna-Istanbul flight would make it possible for Varna to become a bridge to the countries from the Middle and Far East.

Ocal explained that Turkish Airlines would promote the direct flight to Varna for free not only in Turkey but in all of the countries where it functioned.

He vowed that all inflight magazines of the company would provide information about Varna and all major cultural, sports and other events taking place in the Black Sea city.

As of March 30, Serbia’s flag carrier, Air Serbia, will also launch flights from Belgrade to Sofia and Varna.

Flights of Air Serbia to Sofia will run every day and flights to Varna will run three times a week. As of June, Belgrade-Varna flights will be conducted on a daily basis.

The flights from Belgrade to Sofia and Varna will be serviced by ATR72 aircraft manufactured by a French-Italian consortium.