Nonstop flight route between Sofia, Bulgaria and Melbourne, Victoria, Australia:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF), Sofia, Bulgaria and Essendon Airport (MEB), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia would travel a Great Circle distance of 9,393 miles (or 15,116 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 large distance between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna and Essendon Airport, the route shown on this map most likely appears curved because of this reason.

Try it at home! Get a globe and tightly lay a string between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna and Essendon Airport. You'll see that it will travel the same route of the red line on this map!

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF):

• In addition to being known as "Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna", other names for SOF include "Vrazhdebna Airport" and "Летище София".
• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna handled 350,432 passengers last year.
• The closest airport to Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) is Plovdiv Airport (PDV), which is located 86 miles (138 kilometers) ESE of SOF.
• By the late 1970s, the terminal was handling in the region of three million passengers a year, a million of them on domestic routes.
• In mid-2012 the airport will have one of the most modern and most beautiful airport towers in Europe.
• A significant and recurring operational criticism of Sofia Airport has concerned its historical lack of all-weather operations capability.
• 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.
• In 2004 Strabag demanded an additional 6 million euro due to rising steel prices.
• 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.
• Contract for detailed design and construction of a new control tower of the airport and forming an ATM Glavbolgarstroy.
• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) currently has only 1 runway.

Facts about Essendon Airport (MEB):

• Because of Essendon Airport's relatively low elevation of 282 feet, planes can take off or land at Essendon 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.
• The furthest airport from Essendon Airport (MEB) is Flores Airport (FLW), which is nearly antipodal to Essendon Airport (meaning Essendon Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Flores Airport), and is located 12,192 miles (19,620 kilometers) away in Flores Island, Azores, Portugal.
• International flights departed mainly from Sydney during Essendon's years of operation, and there were regular daily flights between the two largest metropolitan areas in Australia.
• The closest airport to Essendon Airport (MEB) is Melbourne Airport (MEL), which is located only 5 miles (8 kilometers) NW of MEB.
• Essendon Airport (MEB) has 2 runways.
• In addition to being known as "Essendon Airport", another name for MEB is "Melbourne/Essendon".
• The airport was extended with additional land during the 1930s.
• The 1920s period saw the great pioneering aviation flights of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith who visited the airport on several occasions.
• The airfield itself also has undergone a major upgrade with the installation of lighting and signage systems to bring the airport to International Civil Aviation Organization standards.
• The major passenger airlines using Essendon in the postwar years until scheduled air services were transferred to Tullamarine were Ansett Airlines and Trans Australia Airlines.
• On 31 January 1945, a heavily-modified Stinson Model A registered VH-UYY and named Tokana, operated by Australian National Airways, departed from Essendon Airport for the daily flight to Kerang.