The Bulgarian capital Sofia Airport has set itself the goal of becoming a five-star airport. One of the ways to achieve this is by building the planned Terminal 3. There is currently a business lounge in Terminal 2. Does this already come close to the five-star goal or is there still a lot of room for improvement?
Terminals 1 and 2 are currently in operation at Sofia Airport. The vast majority of airlines use T2, but low-cost airline Wizzair, for example, flies from T1. T2 has an Aspire lounge operated by Swissport. There are no special conditions for access, as any passenger can use this facility for a fee of 30 euros. Business class passengers of certain airlines and holders of status cards of some carriers have free access. Lounge cards such as Priority Pass and Dragon Pass are also accepted.
It is currently the only lounge waiting for passengers in Terminal 2 of Sofia Airport. There are no alternatives and no other such facilities are expected to come into operation until the planned third terminal is put into operation.
The entrance to the Aspire Lounge is on the right hand side after the security check on the ground floor. The facility is accessible via stairs, escalator and elevator and is signposted. Once you get there, it is not difficult to find as the entrance area is quite eye-catching.
It is precisely this design that creates high expectations. To be clear: Unfortunately not, these cannot really be fulfilled and there are various reasons for this. After completing the check-in formalities, the Aspire Lounge is open to visitors. Depending on the time of day, cold and/or warm snacks and numerous drinks are offered, all of which are free of charge.
Spartan selection, old equipment
At the time of the visit, it was breakfast time. The selection was very spartan and limited to the bare essentials. In other words: sausage, cheese, butter, rolls, croissants, a little yogurt, a little dessert and that was it. Nothing else was provided. If the quality had been good, it wouldn't have been so bad. But that wasn't really the case, because subjectively the rolls weren't particularly tasty and the toppings didn't make it any better. The "display case" in which the sausage, cheese and butter were kept was extremely difficult to open.
This was just a kind of "foretaste" of the fact that other facilities in which food is kept were not exactly easy to open. For example, the aging sliding refrigerators in which drinks such as water and cola are available for dispensing were also very stiff. In addition, one device was a real "icebox" because the cola it contained was frozen. It must not have been set up correctly because it is very unlikely that the intention was to serve frozen cola in cans.
The seating in this lounge is fine. There are various options for working, relaxing or eating. But there are far too few dedicated dining areas, as the "sofa style" dominates, with two seats facing each other and a small table in the middle. Power sockets are hard to find, as there are only a few, which is no longer modern.
Half of the lounge is a smoking area
The fact that the lounge is split in the middle is definitely out of date. One half is a non-smoking area and smoking is allowed in the other part. This is definitely not a smoking box, as you can find in lounges in other countries, but rather a fully furnished area of the lounge that takes up about half of the total space. This is now completely unusual and is very rarely seen in this form.
There is no "view" because the windows are covered with foil, so you can't see what's going on on the apron. Because it's on the ground floor, it does have a bit of a basement feel. It doesn't have to be that way, because with a few small changes the lounge could be made more comfortable and pleasant.
Lots of room for improvement
The Aspire Lounge at Sofia Airport definitely has a lot of room for improvement. Given the airport's own goal of becoming a five-star airport, the first step should be to completely revise the concept of this lounge or at least improve the quality of the food on offer and replace the outdated equipment.
The entrance fee of 30 euros is in line with the general average, but the price level in the catering area in the security area is high for typical local conditions, but significantly lower than in Austria or Germany, for example. For those paying for their own tickets, the question arises as to whether the cost-benefit analysis really works out in this lounge.
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