Nonstop flight route between Sofia, Bulgaria and Lod (near Tel Aviv), Israel:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF), Sofia, Bulgaria and Ben Gurion Airport (TLV), Lod (near Tel Aviv), Israel would travel a Great Circle distance of 969 miles (or 1,559 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 Ben Gurion 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):

• In addition to being known as "Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna", other names for SOF include "Vrazhdebna Airport" and "Летище София".
• The initial completion deadline for the new terminal was 15 December 2004 to a total budget of 112.2 million euro.
• 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.
• Sofia Airport, sometimes also called Sofia-Vrazhdebna Airport, is the main airport of Bulgaria.
• The closest airport to Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) is Plovdiv Airport (PDV), which is located 86 miles (138 kilometers) ESE of SOF.
• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna handled 350,432 passengers last year.
• The project for the construction of a new airport control tower at Sofia Airport commenced on 16 June 2006 with a decision of the BULATSA Management Board.
• A lot of consideration has been given to the design of the layout, the functional definition of the working positions, the operations room surface area for ANS provision and meteorological observation, as well as to the requirements for visibility to the runway and the approaches and access to an open observation platform.
• The new tower was officially opened on 7 December 2012.
• The airport was initially built in the late 1930s on a site 6.3 km by road then.
• Service life of the new airport control tower will be more than 40 years and is designed to serve the airport with a possible extension.
• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) currently has only 1 runway.

Facts about Ben Gurion Airport (TLV):

• Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) has 3 runways.
• Terminal 1 had been closed in 2003 and then re-opened in 2007 as the domestic terminal following extensive renovations, and in July 2008, to cater for summer charter and low-cost flights.
• The closest airport to Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) is Sde Dov Airport (SDV), which is located only 9 miles (15 kilometers) NW of TLV.
• In addition to being known as "Ben Gurion Airport", another name for TLV is "נְמַל הַתְּעוּפָה בֵּן גּוּרְיוֹן".
• The new terminal was built to serve over 10 million passengers per year.
• The furthest airport from Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) is Rurutu Airport (RUR), which is located 11,672 miles (18,784 kilometers) away in Rurutu, French Polynesia.
• More buildings and runways were added over the years, but with the onset of mass immigration from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union in the 1980s and 90s, as well as the global increase of international business travel, the existing facilities became painfully inadequate, prompting the design of new state-of-the-art terminal that could also accommodate the expected tourism influx for the 2000 millennium celebrations.
• Because of Ben Gurion Airport's relatively low elevation of 134 feet, planes can take off or land at Ben Gurion 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 addition, Israel Aerospace Industries also maintains its head office on airport grounds as well as extensive aviation construction and repair facilities.
• The original layout of the airfield as designed by the British in the 1930s included four intersecting 800 m runways suitable for the piston-engined aircraft of the day.