The building and parking lot of the new passenger terminal of the Sofia International Airport will be officially inaugurated on December 27, said Bulgarian transport minister Petar Mutafchiev on Monday, December 18. Other parts of the new facility, including the new taxiways, have not been cleared by the construction supervision authority.

Strabag, the Austrian company hired to build the new passenger terminal, and the Bulgarian government are scheduled to start from December 20 negotiations on reciprocal claims regarding cost overruns and missed handover deadlines. Local carriers Bulgaria Air and Hemus Air, Air Malta and Romania's Tarom will be the first to take off from the new passenger terminal starting December 28. Charter and low cost airlines will continue to use the old passenger terminal.

The new terminal meets EU requirements for servicing passengers and implementing required border controls and would have an annual capacity of 2.5 mln passengers a year and a peak-hour rate of 2,000 passengers. The expansion of the Sofia airport has a budget of 111 mln euro. It is co-financed with 60 mln euro from the EIB and with money form the state budget.