Drivers' Protests Leave 1000 Foreign Tourists Stuck at Burgas Airport

Society | July 19, 2008, Saturday // 00:00
Bulgaria: Drivers' Protests Leave 1000 Foreign Tourists Stuck at Burgas Airport 1000 foreign tourists were stuck at Burgas Airport Saturday afternoon during bus drivers' protests, which lasted for two hours. Photo by slovar.org.uk

About 1000 foreign tourists were stuck for two hours at the airport in the city of Burgas because the local bus drivers refused to drive them to Sunny Beach and the Black Sea resorts located to the south of the city.

The drivers protested against a recent measure taken by the State Automobile Inspectorate (DAI), which started to fine them if they worked for more than eight hours a day.

The drivers explained they must not be fined because their working time was nine hours a day but sometimes they would drive for only an hour because they had to wait for the tourist planes to arrive.

Representatives of the DAI in turn explained they were only adhering to the law. Only on Friday night they fined about 100 drivers, the lowest fine being BGN 500.

The aim of their sanctions is to make sure the bus drivers along Bulgaria's sea coast get sufficient hours of rest and sleep in order to prevent potential accidents.

In order to conduct its campaign properly, DAI even sent additional number of inspectors to the three Black Sea districts of Varna, Burgas, and Dobrich.

Three police cars arrived at the Burgas airport during the protest. Around 4 p.m. the buses set off to the nearby Black Sea resorts with the foreign tourists on board.

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