Bulgaria had a short-lived airline (Bunavad) in 1927, yet the country could not afford investing in modern air transport until after World War II.

Since Bulgaria was regarded as a combatant on the defeated Axis side, the DVS could only contract with France for the supply of several Atelier d'Avions Coulombe Toucan aircraft (French-built versions of the Junkers Ju 52).

In interpretation of their delivery, Bulgarian airmen practised by flying the nation's first long-distance flights: to Paris, transporting government officials to peace negotiations, being conducted there.

[4]: 788  The airline with this brand name survived until the end of 1967, often in the shadow of the headline phrase Bulgarian Air Transport.

[citation needed] These aircraft, along with Li-2s,[5] were deployed on services to seven domestic destinations, including Burgas, Gorna Oryahovitsa,[6] Ruschuk, Plovdiv,[7] Sofia, Stara Zagora[8] and Varna; and international destinations Amsterdam, Athens, Beirut, Belgrade, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Damascus, Frankfurt, Kiev, Moscow, Odessa, Prague, Vienna and Warsaw.

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).

Amid rumours of scandal and embezzling several Teksim directors were sent to jail, accused of performing capitalism-ruled economic behaviour.

[11] The airline became the first foreign customer of the type,[12]: 31  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.

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.

With the delivery of more Tu-154s, Balkan opened longer-range routes, including ones to Zimbabwe, Angola and Nigeria in sub-Equatorial Africa, and to Sri Lanka and Vietnam in Southern Asia.

In 1986, Balkan was restructured as part of a wholesale shakeup of the late Socialist economy in an attempt to make it more productive and manageable.

It had suffered disastrous traffic falls after the Comecon fuel crisis of 1979, when the number of passengers carried collapsed to under a million.

Within a year, Balkan had been restructured yet again, with Hemus Air emerging from within it as a "second force" state-owned airline with mainly domestic and regional flights.

Private airlines began to appear, most important among them Singapore-backed Jes Air which launched services to New York and Singapore using Airbus A310s.

Late in 1998, the company was ready to be sold to a holding named Balkan Air, comprising Bulgarian and US investors,[23] but the transaction was later suspended.

These operated services to Abu Dhabi, Accra, Algiers, Amsterdam, Athens, Bahrain, Bangkok, Belgrade, Berlin, Bourgas, Brussels, Budapest, Cairo, Casablanca, Chișinău, Colombo, Copenhagen, Dubai, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Istanbul, Kyiv, Kuwait, Lagos, Larnaca, London, Madrid, Malé, Malta, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Prague, Rome, Sofia, Stockholm, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Tripoli, Varna, Vienna, Warsaw and Zurich.

[29][30] Its assets seemed to be being sold-off in an asset-stripping manner and by early 2001, Balkan's fleet was not even up to the task of meeting the airline's summer charter commitments, despite taking on some used 737-300s.

[31][additional citation(s) needed] In February 2001 (2001-02), the Zeevi group ceased funding the carrier and initiated legal action against the Bulgarian government over a US$100 million debt.

[37] Short of cash, in 2002 Balkan's six weekly slots for Heathrow airport were sold to British Airways for US$6 million.

[40][41] Until 1990, Balkan's signs were carried both by normal airliners and special government detachment, agricultural aviation, sanitary wings, cargo planes.