Bulgaria Air en route to saving both its own and its country's reputation
Yesterday at a quickly gathered press conference Bulgaria Air's executive supervisor Janko Georgiyev announced, on September 23rd his company will transport Alma Tour SPb's clients from Burgas to Russia without any extra charge. It means these people, whose vacations end today, do have a chance to return home on time – unlike nearly one thousand other tourists who've become sucked into the Bulgarian carrier's financial row with the country's tourism holding.
Just to remind you, on September 9th and 16th several of Bulgaria Air's flights were canceled from airports in Varna and Burgas due to a 3,5 million euro dept on behalf of Alma Tour Fly - one of the departments of Bulgaria's holding Alma Tour.
Right before the press conference, which was held at the Otdykh-2011 exhibition, Bulgaria Air's management consulted with representatives of Russia's union of the tourism industry. According to Mr. Georgiyev, the decision to transport the tourists back home was made nearly a few minutes before the meeting with the press. «I hope this decision will help fix the uncomfortable situation Russian tourists have found themselves in», - added Georgiyev.
Talking about the timeline of the events, Bulgaria Air's regional representative Ivan Ivanov explained, Alma Tour's dept was not that signifficant when the summer program was just starting. The company began experiencing serious problems only by the end of July. «We notified the company's management about its situation, but the dept remained nevertheless. At the end of August we notified Alma Tour once more, that if it didn't pay its dept, flight programs would be suspended. Shortly after that an additional agreement on the restructuring of the dept was signed and a payments time table was put together. But Alma Tour BG failed to comply», - said the Bulgarian carrier's representative.
It seems, this story needs thorough analysis. For instance, earlier Alma Tour SPb informed, 180 people were supposed to take off from Burgas on September 30th. However yesterday Janko Georgiyev announced, there were no bookings for this date. But September 30th was the last return day of the flight program, ordered by Alma Tour. That's why it's quite possible, currently there are tourists in Bulgaria who plan to return to St. Petersburg on the last day of the month.
The head of the Bulgarian air and naval transportation administration, Tilko Petrov, explained that according to international law, airlines are obliged to transport passengers to their destinations and back only if they have documents, like two-way electronic tickets, which have been paid for. But as it turns out, Alma Tour Fly only sent one-way tickets to Alma Tour's clients without informing the tourists. «There was no mention of passengers which were supposed to travel to Russia in Bulgaria Air's booking system. This is why the flights were annulled», - Mr. Petrov explained. At the same time Janko Georgiyev promised if any passengers would show up on September 30th, they'd all be transported back to Russia for free.
A representative of Bulgaria's Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism – Albena Metodiyeva – said she hoped the incident would not affect the relations between the two countries. She reminded once more that Alma Tour has filed for bankrupcy of all its departments on Bulgarian territory due to its inability to pay off its dept. Also, the country's prosecutors office is going to look into all the circumstances of the holding's conflict with Bulgaria Air.