A Facebook group in favor of launching passenger flights to the currently inactive passenger airport of Gorna Oryahovitsa located in the very center of Northern Bulgaria has rallied more 1 100 people, including both British expats and Bulgarians.

The group entitled "We want Cheap flights from Gorna Oryhavitsa" was started in March 2011 as soon as the Bulgarian government approved a procedure for offering on concession the Gorna Oryahovitsa Airport, which is right outside the city of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria's medieval capital.

The Veliko Tarnovo region is known for its tourist attractions, which is also the home of a high number of British expats.

One of the major low-cost flight operators has stated in written that it was "considering" flights to Gorna Oryahovitsa, David Driver, the founder of the Facebook group on the Gorna Oryahovitsa Airport told Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) in a letter.

"The advantage to the Veliko Tarnovo Area would be tremendous if this airport started handling passenger flights, the boost to the local economy from tourism and the creation of employment for locals would also benefit everyone," Driver said stressing that the fact the group has manage to rally people should indicate the potential of the Gorna Oryahovitsa Airport to investors.

The Bulgarian Cabinet has stated its goal is to find a concessionaire that would help attract passenger and freight traffic and will invest in the infrastructure and modernization of the airport.

The development of the Gorna Oryahovitsa Airport is one of the goals of the Transport Ministry, and is included in the Strategy for the Development of Bulgaria's Transport Infrastructure until 2015.

The proposed term of the concession is 35 years and the concessionaires will be determined through an open procedure.

The Gorna Oryahovitsa Airport is located right near Gorna Oryahovitsa, a town of 30 000, and Veliko Tarnovo, a district city of 70 000, and a bustling tourism center. It is also close to the cities of Pleven, Ruse, Gabrovo, and Lovech. It is located (air distance) 200 km away from Sofia, 180 km from Varna, and 145 km away from Bucharest.

Since 2008-2009, the Gorna Oryahovitsa Airport has not served regular passenger flights but only freight flights and occasional charter flights. It had only 941 passengers in 2007.

The airport was set up in 1925 for the use of the Bulgarian Air Force. In 1948, it opened a direct passenger line to Sofia, the third one in the country. The current infrastructure of the airport was constructed in the 1970s and the 1980s, and completed in the mid 1990s.

In 1995, it became the fifth international airport in Bulgaria, after Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, and Burgas, with customs and border police units. The economic hardship in Bulgaria in the following years, however, have affected its functioning.

In a similar effort to develop Bulgaria's airports, in February 2011, the Cabinet started procedures for finding private operators of the cargo terminal of the southern Plovdiv Airport, and of the civilian airport Shtraklevo near the Danube city of Ruse.

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