Nonstop flight route between Sofia, Bulgaria and London, England, United Kingdom:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF), Sofia, Bulgaria and London Heathrow Airport (LHR), London, England, United Kingdom would travel a Great Circle distance of 1,268 miles (or 2,041 kilometers).

A Great Circle is the shortest distance between 2 points on a sphere. Because most world maps are flat (but the Earth is round), the route of the shortest distance between 2 points on the Earth will often appear curved when viewed on a flat map, especially for long distances. If you were to simply draw a straight line on a flat map and measure a very long distance, it would likely be much further than if you were to lay a string between those two points on a globe. Because of the relatively short distance between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna and London Heathrow Airport, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF):

• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna handled 350,432 passengers last year.
• The airport was initially built in the late 1930s on a site 6.3 km by road then.
• The closest airport to Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) is Plovdiv Airport (PDV), which is located 86 miles (138 kilometers) ESE of SOF.
• On 31 August 2006, Sofia Airport put its new runway system into operation, replacing the old and out-of-date facilities.
• In addition to being known as "Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna", other names for SOF include "Vrazhdebna Airport" and "Летище София".
• The new tower is an extremely important facility for both ATC and the airport because it is related to the safety and security of flights, explained by the transport department.
• 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.
• The furthest airport from Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,437 miles (18,405 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• The VIP terminal is located in the western wing of Terminal 1 and has an entrance of its own, providing an access to four separate rooms – one main room and two separated rooms with about 20 seats each.
• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) currently has only 1 runway.
• Options for different airport developments began to be examined in the mid-1960s.

Facts about London Heathrow Airport (LHR):

• The airport has been criticised in recent years for overcrowding and delays.
• Because of London Heathrow Airport's relatively low elevation of 83 feet, planes can take off or land at London Heathrow Airport at a lower air speed than at airports located at a higher elevation. This is because the air density is higher closer to sea level than it would otherwise be at higher elevations.
• In the 1950s, Heathrow had six runways, arranged in three pairs at different angles in the shape of a hexagram with the permanent passenger terminal in the middle and the older terminal along the north edge of the field, and two of its runways would always be within 30° of the wind direction.
• As the airport is west of London and as its runways run east–west, an airliner's landing approach is usually directly over the conurbation of London when the wind is from the west.
• The closest airport to London Heathrow Airport (LHR) is RAF Northolt (NHT), which is located only 6 miles (9 kilometers) NNE of LHR.
• Air traffic controllers at Heathrow Approach Control then guide the aircraft to their final approach, merging aircraft from the four holds into a single stream of traffic, sometimes as close as 2.5 nautical miles apart.
• The furthest airport from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,875 miles (19,112 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• Heathrow Airport is used by over 90 airlines flying to 170 destinations worldwide.
• London Heathrow Airport (LHR) has 2 runways.
• Until 2008, air traffic between Heathrow and the United States was strictly governed by the countries' bilateral Bermuda II treaty.
• Of Heathrow's 69 million passengers in 2011, 7% were bound for UK destinations, 41% were short-haul international travellers and 52% were long-haul.