[5] On 16 September 1937, Tsar Boris III signed a decree which declared land within the Village of Vrazhdebna be allocated for the construction of an airport.

[6][7] From June through September 1938, Yugoslav airline Aeroput connected Sofia with Belgrade thrice weekly using Lockheed Model 10 Electra planes.

Mail, perishable freight and passenger operations began in 1947 from buildings on the north side of the airport.

[citation needed] The terminal had substantially reached its capacity of some 600,000 passengers a year by the later 1960s and was subjected to a number of refurbishments and extensions beginning in the spring of 1968.

A new checked baggage handling system opened to the north of the building in the early 1980s, cosmetic and traffic reorganising refurbishments were carried out in 1990, with a substantial landside extension following in 2000.

Passenger numbers fell off sharply after the 1979 CMEA ("Comecon") oil price shock and recovered to just over a million a year by the late 1980s.

[10][11][12] The following December, Balkan Bulgarian Airlines commenced direct service to New York City aboard Boeing 767s.

A finance package involving very significant European and Kuwaiti investment was initially agreed in 1998 and was in place by 2000.

Over the years, Sofia Airport has been criticised for its lack of world class air freight facilities and for some access problems.

Passengers to and from the Bulgarian interior have to access or egress the airport through crowded rail and coach facilities in central Sofia.

During the winter months, the airport, located on a high alluvial plain surrounded by mountains, suffers from very significant and frequent fog precipitation.

In such circumstances, flights are redirected to diversion airports in Bulgaria or neighbouring countries, lengthening journeys by many hours.

[19] As a result of growing air traffic and passenger numbers, the airport facilities struggled to cope despite several expansions in the years prior.

The new runway was offset from the old by 210 m (690 ft) with the eastern end crossing the Iskar River bed on a specially constructed bridge.

The delay was ten months, and construction resumed after the Bulgarian government agreed to augment the project's value by 4.8 million euro and extend the deadline to 31 August 2005.

[27] A new 50 m (160 ft)[20] control tower was inaugurated officially on 5 December 2012 by the PM Boyko Borisov and the minister of transport Ivaylo Moskovski.

The contract for building the tower was signed on 19 August 2011 in the presence of Ivaylo Moskovski, minister of transport, information technology and communications, the BULATSA director general Diyan Dinev, Glavbolgarstroy AD chief executive director Pavel Kalistratov and Glavbolgarstroy AD executive director and management board member Nina Stoyanova signed the design execution and construction contract between BULATSA and Glavbolgarstroy AD for the new control tower at Sofia Airport (Sofia tower).

[29] Glavbolgartroy AD were selected as contractor, as they were awarded the highest technical rating during the public procurement procedure having proposed the shortest construction timeframe.

On 31 August 2006, Sofia Airport put its new runway system into operation, replacing the old and out-of-date facilities.

New rapid and connecting taxiways were built to open way for 20 aircraft movements per hour at a high level of safety.

The navigational aids installed on the new runway enable landing operations under low visibility conditions at category IIIB of the ICAO standards.

The facility has undergone a major reconstruction and an upgrade and now can handle the heaviest stage of aircraft maintenance checks, D-Check, that is now being carried out in Bulgaria.

The hangar lies on 5000 square meters and has three production lines with overall capacity of 300 planes per year and it can handle C-Check.

[36] Terminal 2 was officially opened on 27 December 2006 with the symbolic arrival of Bulgaria Air flight FB 408 from Brussels.

The terminal has seven air-bridges (gates A1, B5–9 and C1), 38 check-in desks and covers an area of 50,000 m2 (540,000 sq ft) and has a car park for 820 vehicles.

It is located to the east of Terminal 1 and is significantly bigger than the old one which continues to serve low-cost and charter airlines.

This will be the main focus for this period and will be implemented along with the usage of Terminal 1 for VIP and business aviation services only.

Its junction with Botevgradsko Shose provides access to northbound destinations via Hemus motorway (A2) [114] Connecting to the southern parts of Sofia and Southwestern Bulgaria is the route via Brussels Boulevard and Boulevard Aleksandar Malinov to Sofia ring road which has an interchange with southbound Struma motorway (A3) A railway station at Iskarsko shose was inaugurated in April 2015, providing faster interchange from the airport to southbound services on the Bulgarian national railway system.

Starting 1 January 2025, a minimum of 5% of the monthly taxi journeys operated from the airport should be conducted using electric vehicles and a year later the percentage should be increased to 10%.