page_title: Balkan Bulgarian Airlines
section_title: The 1950s and 1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Balkan Bulgarian Airlines / History / The 1950s and 1960s
caption_attribution_description: Ilyushin Il-18 LZ-BEL of Bulair at London Gatwick in 1969
context_page_description: Balkan Airlines was Bulgaria's government-owned flag carrier between 1947 and 2002. During the 1970s, the airliner became a significant European carrier. The company encountered financial instability following the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Despite managing to continue operations, following the start of the 21st century and a controversial privatisation, it declared bankruptcy in 2002. Balkan was liquidated in late October 2002. Bulgaria Air was appointed Balkan's successor in December 2002.
context_section_description: Soviet equity in TABSO was reacquired by the Bulgarian government in 1954. The airline with this brand name survived until the end of 1967, often in the shadow of the headline phrase Bulgarian Air Transport. In 1956, TABSO bought its first Ilyushin Il-14 aircraft. These aircraft, along with Li-2s, were deployed on services to seven domestic destinations, including Burgas, Gorna Oryahovitsa, Ruschuk, Plovdiv, Sofia, Stara Zagora  and Varna; and international destinations Amsterdam, Athens, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Damascus, Frankfurt, Kiev, Moscow, Odessa, Prague, Vienna and Warsaw.
  In 1962, it began services with the Ilyushin Il-18; these and the expansion of Bulgaria's inclusive-tour tourism industry began to put the airline's name on the European and world map. The turboprop type crossed the Equator to Kenya and the Atlantic to Peru. By 1967, Antonov An-24s had arrived for domestic and regional flights.
  By the mid-1960s, tourism was a major hard currency earner for Bulgaria and TABSO faced home-grown competition. Executives of the Teksim trading company had decided to start their own aviation business which included crop-spraying and inclusive-tour charter airline operations under the name of Булер (Bulair). Despite trying to buy Sud Aviation Caravelle jet airliners, Bulair ended up buying more Il-18s turboprops under heavy Soviet and Bulgarian political pressure. These were operated to several Western European countries to bring holiday makers to Bulgarian resorts.
  The Teksim venture proved a success and a thorn in the side of TABSO. By 1967, TABSO had the inside track in government circles, and the Teksim operation was largely disbanded by 1970. Amid rumours of scandal and embezzling several Teksim directors were sent to jail, accused of performing capitalism-ruled economic behaviour. Their venture had operated under the TABSO banner for reasons of expediency (not least international rights). The last Bulair-branded aircraft had been rebranded as TABSO machines by 1972.
  The carrier bought three Tupolev Tu-134 jets in late 1967. On 1 January 1968, TABSO was rebranded Balkan Bulgarian Airlines (Bulgarian: Балкан – Български въздушни линии, Balkan – Bulgarski vazdushni linii). The wider commercial aviation scene was put under Balkan's control via subsidiaries such as the aforementioned Bulair, Селскостопанска авиация [ССА] or Selskostopanska aviacia [SSA] (the Agricultural Aviation Company) and a separate profit centre which performed ad-hoc aviation contracting, mostly with helicopters.
  The first Tu-134 was put into service in November 1968, initially flying scheduled services between Sofia and London. The airline became the first foreign customer of the type, leading to a close association with the Tupolev design bureau that lasted two decades. There were several reasons why Bulgaria was allowed to put a new Soviet type into service ahead of more important Soviet-bloc nations. Andrei Tupolev was President of the Soviet-Bulgarian Society. He had cemented personal links with his Bulgarian counterpart, formidable wartime Resistance figure and Politburo member Tsola Dragoycheva. She lobbied him for delivery preferences in return for campaigning before the Bulgarian authorities to buy his products rather than Western or other Soviet aircraft types. Indeed, Balkan never bought the Ilyushin Il-62 long-range airliner, preferring to misuse its Tu-154s for long-range work. Similarly, it eschewed Ilyushin's Il-86 wide-body despite arguably having the precise role for it on its sea or ski charter flights.
caption: Ilyushin Il-18 of Bulair at London Gatwick Airport in 1969
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:08:24 22:26:47", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "184", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "438", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6297", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:08:21 08:36:43", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:08:21 08:36:43", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "[0, 1, 0, 0]", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1024", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "704", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom"}