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Wed, Feb 15 2012
Travel and Leisure: Sofia Airport among the ugliest in the world – report
Part of Sofia Airport's Terminal 2
Photo: Nadezdha Chipeva
United States magazine Travel & Leisure has published a table listing the world's ugliest and most bizarre airports, and Sofia Airport is on the list.
Travel & Leisure is based in New York City, published monthly, and it has 4.8 million readers, reportedly. It specialises in leisure travel and often features articles written by novelists, poets, artists, designers and non-travel journalists. The magazine is also renowned for its travel photography.
In one if its latest articles, a number of airports around the world are "critically analysed". Sofia Airport comes in for heavy criticism both of its old terminal, but even more so for Terminal 2, which is best described in a single word as a "misunderstanding".
"The worst offenders are ugly by choice rather than necessity: certain airports, like those in Bali and Sofia, Bulgaria, seem to have gone out of their way to acquire the uncanny placelessness that typifies the modern airport," the article says.
"Sofia’s airport is a combination of a much-renovated and expanded 1937-era Terminal 1 and a new Terminal 2, which opened in 2006. The old terminal is, as you’d expect, an unpleasant amalgam of styles and additions," the article says.
"The new one should have been an improvement, yet it wound up looking like one of those impressively shiny but irredeemably wrongheaded post-Communist showplaces. You get the sense that the builders had the right kit of parts but failed to read the assembly instructions," the article says.
But the Sofia Airport is not the only one to receive such pleasant image bashing.
"The American airports we love to hate all share roughly the same problem: they were built in the 1950s or ‘60s and have been endlessly expanded".
"The original elegance has been destroyed by one ill-conceived remodel hack job after another. What once was a beautiful airport has become a broken architectural horror."
Regarding JFK in Queens, NY, the report brands it as a "More than dysfunctional, it’s completely bananas".
Meanwhile the pride of France, Charles de Gaulle, received a thumps up along the lines of "has rendered everyone who works there sociopathic. Its staff are literally unable to empathize with the appalling experiences they inflict on passengers."
West London's Heathrow’s also received its share of positive superlatives. Reportedly, its greatest virtue is that it "makes New Yorkers feel better about JFK. What does Heathrow actually look like? Hard to say - four shopping malls that have been smashed together."
Read the full article on travelandleisure.com.
Travel & Leisure is based in New York City, published monthly, and it has 4.8 million readers, reportedly. It specialises in leisure travel and often features articles written by novelists, poets, artists, designers and non-travel journalists. The magazine is also renowned for its travel photography.
In one if its latest articles, a number of airports around the world are "critically analysed". Sofia Airport comes in for heavy criticism both of its old terminal, but even more so for Terminal 2, which is best described in a single word as a "misunderstanding".
"The worst offenders are ugly by choice rather than necessity: certain airports, like those in Bali and Sofia, Bulgaria, seem to have gone out of their way to acquire the uncanny placelessness that typifies the modern airport," the article says.
"Sofia’s airport is a combination of a much-renovated and expanded 1937-era Terminal 1 and a new Terminal 2, which opened in 2006. The old terminal is, as you’d expect, an unpleasant amalgam of styles and additions," the article says.
"The new one should have been an improvement, yet it wound up looking like one of those impressively shiny but irredeemably wrongheaded post-Communist showplaces. You get the sense that the builders had the right kit of parts but failed to read the assembly instructions," the article says.
But the Sofia Airport is not the only one to receive such pleasant image bashing.
"The American airports we love to hate all share roughly the same problem: they were built in the 1950s or ‘60s and have been endlessly expanded".
"The original elegance has been destroyed by one ill-conceived remodel hack job after another. What once was a beautiful airport has become a broken architectural horror."
Regarding JFK in Queens, NY, the report brands it as a "More than dysfunctional, it’s completely bananas".
Meanwhile the pride of France, Charles de Gaulle, received a thumps up along the lines of "has rendered everyone who works there sociopathic. Its staff are literally unable to empathize with the appalling experiences they inflict on passengers."
West London's Heathrow’s also received its share of positive superlatives. Reportedly, its greatest virtue is that it "makes New Yorkers feel better about JFK. What does Heathrow actually look like? Hard to say - four shopping malls that have been smashed together."
Read the full article on travelandleisure.com.
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I liked the Sofia airport. Tiny in comparison and not as security phobic as most other places - JFK and LaGuardia in NY are much worse in appearance.
Sitting in the dep room at Sofia Airport and they have the most fantastic old lights that must have been gas lit a long time ago, they are in terminal one. They really should make a feature of them and they should become a tourist attraction
I've been to a wide variety of airports around the world and have to say, the airport in Sofia is really ugly. It is a very tiny airport for sure, but they certainly did not make the most of the space it does occupy.
I agree William, the Sofia airport is not so bad at all, especially for one of it's size. More useless media trying to fill articles.
Kabul Airport? that wasn't in the table.
or that joke of an airport in Belgrade. Or the bomb-bunker in Damascus?
Or the public toilet which is the Mogadishu airport.
What is left of Baghdad's airport?
Does Serbia even have an airport?
The old terminal (1) in Sofia airport has a certain faded Soviet charm - the 1950s wall map in ceramics and mosaic showing all the destinations in the USSR from Sofia deserves a UNESCO heritage grant !
And the design of the original airport hall itself is pure Moscow Metro ! St Petersburg/Leningrad used have an almost identical one, except that had Soviet bombers painted on the ceiling too, with all their bomb-doors open.
You just don't GET that sort of dedicated Socialist Realist design these days, do you ?
I THINK YOUR ALL WRONG.THE NEW TERMINAL (2)IS LIKE A BIG LIT-UP CEMETARY WITH LOTS OF LIGHTS AND BIG WIDE SPACES DEAD SHOPS AND EMTHY SEATS
I hate JFK with a passion. Really terrible airport. Sofia is better than that, the semi-nude women aren't a worry for me, but a better place to get snacks would be better. I'm better off getting my own food before coming into the airport. My mom still talks about the cows grazing when she came 10 years ago. She's convinced she saw cows grazing on/near the runway.
Hey, I like the semi-nude women!
when I land in Sofia arriving from the US, Middle East or India, and I see those adds with casual nudity, it's my time to breeth freely.
The real Land of the Free! Home!
i toatally agree with the article! Though i dont think its so much "ugly" as "ridiculusly dumb" it lacks monitors, the main concourse too wide, and the advertismets featuring semi-nude women only further portray bg's image as a.... you know what kind of place.. lol
though if someone had any common sence, and if there was more traffi, nicer eateries, and shops, and ART!!!! it can really come together... lol
Compared to the first time I flew in to Sofia nearly 20 yerars ago todays airport is a masterpiece. 20 years ago the airport was best describled as a "hole in the wall" and made me wonder if I even wanted to visit Bulgaria at all. Since the airport is typically the first thing you see in any country, it can set the tone of the visit. The airport in Sofia is just fine.
I totally disagree with this article. As an American, I can assure them there are many truly ugly airports in America - Sofia is a gem in comparison - a pleasant, open space airport, well organized. They are wrong.