Bulgaria Air

Bulgaria Air is one of those airlines you do not see every day at German airports – and that is exactly what makes it interesting. The Bulgarian national airline is small, its fleet manageable and, since 2023, considerably more modern: the Airbus A220 has arrived there. This page shows you how to reliably recognize Bulgaria Air, which types it flies and where you have a chance of a sighting.

Bulgaria Air at a glance

Bulgaria Air is Bulgaria’s national airline, headquartered at Sofia Airport. From there, it serves destinations across Europe, plus domestic routes to the Black Sea coast at Burgas and Varna. Both coastal airports are also focus points for summer traffic, when vacationers from Central and Eastern Europe head for the sea.

The airline is young, its roots are not. It was founded in November 2002 as the successor to the bankrupt Balkan Bulgarian Airlines, which had been Bulgaria’s state airline since 1947. The first flight under the new name took off in early December 2002.

In the mid-2000s, Bulgaria Air was privatized. The contract went to a group of Bulgarian companies around the airline Hemus Air. Its fleet and that of the smaller Viaggio Air were later absorbed into Bulgaria Air, and the other brands disappeared. The owner today is the Bulgarian holding company Chimimport. Bulgaria Air has been a full IATA member since November 2008.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code FB: appears in the flight number, so on the departures board, ticket and timetable.
• ICAO code LZB: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on most flight trackers.
• Callsign FLYING BULGARIA: how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

The ICAO code LZB is a handy memory aid: the first two letters match the Bulgarian registration prefix LZ-. That is, however, a coincidence of allocation, not a fixed system – with other airlines, code and country often do not match at all. How registrations are structured in general is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.

The fleet: A220 as the new backbone

Bulgaria Air’s fleet is small. According to fleet overviews from summer 2026, it looks roughly like this:

Type	Number	Seats	Classes	Spotter note
Airbus A220-300	5	143	8 business, 135 economy	Since June 2023, the new workhorse
Airbus A220-100	2	118	8 business, 110 economy	Shorter version, seen less often
Airbus A320	4	180	economy only	Classic A320ceo for many vacation flights
Embraer 190	4	108	8 business, 100 economy	In service since 2012
Airbus A319	1	140	n/a	One-off, no longer listed on the airline’s website

The numbers fluctuate slightly, depending on source and month. Aircraft are leased, returned or leased out – Bulgaria Air, for example, repeatedly leases out aircraft with crew to other airlines. How such wet lease deals work is explained in the article Wet lease explained.

The Airbus A220

Bulgaria Air took delivery of its first A220 in mid-June 2023 at the Airbus plant in Mirabel near Montreal. According to Airbus, the package comprises seven aircraft: five A220-300s and two A220-100s. All come from the lessor Air Lease Corporation and have Pratt & Whitney engines. In the Bulgaria Air configuration, the -300 offers 143 seats, eight of them in business class.

The A220 is gradually replacing older types. For you as a spotter, it is the type you are most likely to get in front of your lens at Bulgaria Air today – especially on routes to Central and Western Europe.

Airbus A320 and A319

The A320 flies at Bulgaria Air in a dense one-class version with 180 seats. That makes it especially suited to charter and vacation traffic. These are first-generation (ceo) A320s; the A320neo generation plays no role at Bulgaria Air. How to tell the two apart is shown in the guide A320neo or ceo?.

In addition, fleet overviews still list a single A319. Of all types, this one has history: in 2010, an A319 was the first aircraft in the then-new Bulgaria Air livery. The A319 no longer appears on the airline’s website – if you still catch it, it is a small rarity.

Embraer 190

The Embraer 190 joined the fleet in March 2012 and was long the type for smaller routes. With 108 seats, it is the airline’s smallest aircraft. The manufacturer is Embraer from Brazil. With the A220s, Bulgaria Air now has a more modern type of similar size; how long the E190s will stay is open.

A220, A320 or E190? How to tell them apart

Because Bulgaria Air operates three families in parallel, a closer look is worthwhile. With a few features, you can place the aircraft even from a greater distance.

Telling the A220-100 from the A220-300 is harder because both versions look almost the same. The -300 is about 3.7 meters longer. If only one aircraft is in front of you, that does not help much – but on the tracker you see the type code (BCS1 for the -100, BCS3 for the -300). There is a separate guide for the E-Jets: Telling Embraer E-Jets apart.

How to recognize Bulgaria Air

Today’s livery dates back to 2010. At that time, the fleets of Hemus Air and Viaggio Air were integrated, and Bulgaria Air needed a uniform look. Since then, the fleet has carried the “Bulgaria Air” titles on the fuselage. A small special feature for detail fans: since June 2022, the airline writes its name in Cyrillic as “България Еър” instead of “България Ер” as before.

Because the livery can vary slightly from type to type and leased aircraft temporarily carry deviations, do not rely on looks alone. The reliable features are:

• the LZ- registration on the rear fuselage,
• the ICAO code LZB on the tracker,
• the flight number with FB on the departures board.

Network and partners

The route network is star-shaped around Sofia. According to the airline’s destination overview, which lists direct flights and codeshare destinations together, it goes from there to many European capitals and vacation destinations, such as Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Milan, Athens, Lisbon, Prague and Barcelona. Tel Aviv is also in the network. Domestic flights connect Sofia with Burgas and Varna on the Black Sea coast.

In summer, charter traffic grows significantly. From Burgas and Varna, Bulgaria Air then flies vacationers from Germany, Poland and Israel, among others, to the coast. Parts of this run under the charter brand Bul Air, which Bulgaria Air revived in the mid-2010s. The difference between the two kinds of service is, by the way, not always obvious – the article Charter flights vs. scheduled flights explains it.

Bulgaria Air does not belong to an alliance. Instead, the airline relies on codeshares with individual partners, including Aegean Airlines, Air Serbia, TAROM, Air France, KLM, ITA Airways, Iberia and Qatar Airways. How such partnerships work is explained in the article Codeshare flights explained. You can find more on the big alliances in the overview Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam.

Spotting Bulgaria Air in Germany

In Germany, Bulgaria Air is not part of everyday traffic. The scheduled timetable has connections to Frankfurt and Berlin; outside of those, the airline can usually only be seen in summer with charter flights to the Black Sea. That makes every sighting a bit more special than the tenth Lufthansa A320 of the day.

Because Bulgaria Air sends only a few flights a day to Germany, timing is crucial. Get to the spot in good time and check the runway direction in use beforehand – otherwise the only aircraft of the day lands on the other side of the airport. A sighting alert for the airline helps you not to miss the approach. You can find tips on locations at BER in the plane spotting guide for Berlin. How to judge how special a sighting is is explained in the article How rare is my sighting?.

Spotting in Bulgaria

If you want to collect the fleet completely, you can hardly avoid Sofia. The airport is the airline’s home base and hub, so many Bulgaria Air aircraft are on the move here over the course of a day. With a bit of patience, you see the A220, A320 and E190 side by side in one day.

In summer, the coast is also worthwhile. At Burgas and Varna, Bulgaria Air mixes in with numerous leisure airliners from all over Europe – a good place to experience the Bulgarian airline alongside many other charter companies. There in particular, the densely seated A320s with 180 seats stand out, often used on vacation traffic.

A look back: from Balkan to Bulgaria Air

Bulgaria Air is the continuation of a long history. Its predecessor Balkan Bulgarian Airlines flew Soviet types for decades and later Western jets. After its end in 2002, Bulgaria Air took over the role of national airline. In the first years, Boeing 737-300s and 737-500s, BAe 146s and Avro RJ70s, among others, flew under the new name. All of these types have since been retired.

With the entry of the Hemus Air group, a transformation into a pure Airbus and Embraer fleet began. The most recent step was the A220 from 2023. If you have old photos of Bulgaria Air with Boeing 737s or Avro RJs in your archive, you now own real historic shots.

Common mix-ups

• Confusing FB with LZB – FB is the IATA code in the flight number, LZB the ICAO code on the tracker.
• Thinking every LZ- registration is Bulgaria Air – other Bulgarian operators also carry LZ-.
• Equating Bulgaria Air and Balkan – Balkan Bulgarian Airlines is historic and flew until 2002.
• Mixing up the A220-100 and A220-300 – the -300 is longer; the type code on the tracker helps.
• Thinking the A320 is a neo – Bulgaria Air flies first-generation (ceo) A320s.
• Thinking Bul Air is a separate airline – Bul Air is Bulgaria Air’s charter brand.

Conclusion

Bulgaria Air is a small national airline with a big backstory. Since 2023, the Airbus A220 has shaped the picture, alongside the A320 and Embraer 190 – a fleet you can collect completely with a bit of planning. In Germany, it can be seen mainly in Frankfurt, Berlin and summer charter traffic, which makes every sighting a nice entry in your logbook.