Cost-efficiency - Bulgaria

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PRB monitoring

  • The en route 2025 actual unit cost of Bulgaria was 26.46€2022, -2.9% lower than the determined unit cost (27.25€2022). Bulgaria does not have a terminal charging zone.

  • The en route 2025 actual service units (5.5M) were +3.8% higher than the determined service units (5.3M).

  • The en route 2025 actual total costs were +1.1M€2022 (+0.8%) higher than determined. This is mainly due to higher other operating costs (+2.2M€2022, or +19.1%) of BULATSA, partially compensated by lower staff costs than planned (-1.0M€2022, or -1.1%). The NSA explained that the increase in other operating costs is attributable to the increase of the costs of external services, health and life insurance, and software maintenance and development.

  • BULATSA costs of investments were 23.8M€2022 in 2025, +1.8% more than determined (23.4M€2022). According to the NSA, this increase is due to the development of the investment cycle.

  • The en route actual unit cost incurred by users in 2025 was 29.87€ (-1.6% below the 2025 DUC). The difference between the AUCU and the DUC is mainly driven by the traffic risk sharing adjustment.

  • The en route regulatory result for BULATSA amounted to +16.2M€, or 10.4% of the 2025 revenue. This may indicate that the airspace users are charged for costs which have not materialised in 2025.

En route charging zone

Unit cost (KPI#1)

Actual and determined data
Total costs - nominal (M€) 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029
Determined costs 161.0 173.4 189.7 207.6 218.8
Actual costs 162.3 NA NA NA NA
Difference costs 1.3 NA NA NA NA
Inflation assumptions 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029
Determined inflation rate 2.7% 2.2% 2.0% 2.0% 2.0%
Determined inflation index* 115.3 117.8 120.2 122.6 125.1
Actual inflation rate 3.5% NA NA NA NA
Actual inflation index* 115.3 NA NA NA NA
Difference inflation index (p.p.) +0 NA NA NA NA
*100 = 2022

AUC vs. DUC

In 2025, the en route AUC was -2.9% (or -0.80 €2022) lower than the planned DUC. This results from the combination of higher than planned TSUs (+3.8%) and slightly higher than planned en route costs in real terms (+0.8%, or +1.1 M€2022).

En route service units

The difference between actual and planned TSUs (+3.8%) falls outside the ±2% dead-band but does not exceed the ±10% threshold foreseen in the traffic risk sharing mechanism. The resulting gain of additional en route revenues is therefore shared between the ANSP and the airspace users (see the main ANSP regulatory result).

En route costs by entity

Actual real en route costs are +0.8% (+1.1 M€2022) higher than planned. This is the result of higher costs for the main ANSP, BULATSA (+1.3%, or +1.8 M€2022) and lower costs for the NSA/EUROCONTROL (-6.5%, or -0.6 M€2022) while the costs for the MET service provider (only responsible for provision of space weather information services) were in line with the plan (-0.01%).

En route costs for the main ANSP (BULATSA) at charging zone level

Based on the additional information to the en route reporting tables, the higher than planned en route costs in real terms for BULATSA in 2025 (+1.3%, or +1.8 M€2022) result from:

  • Lower than planned staff costs (-1.1%), mainly due to lower than planned social benefits and pension costs.

  • Significantly higher than planned other operating costs (+19.1%), driven by increases in the average and minimum salary impacting externally procured services (such as security, building and maintenance) as well as additional software maintenance, development and consultancy expenses, including unplanned costs related to the euro conversion.

  • Significantly higher than planned depreciation (+8.6%), mainly due to the development of the investment cycle.

  • Lower than planned cost of capital (-4.9%).

Assessment of the actual performance in the charging zone reported by the NSA

The NSA of Bulgaria provides the following overall assessment of the actual performance in 2025 at charging zone level:

“Although the effects of the war between Russia and Ukraine on many traffic flows was taken into account in the PP, the actual service units exceeded the planned ones by 3.8%. This additional traffic was related to minor increase of total costs in real terms (less than 1%). The cumulative effect leads to a real en route unit cost below the target (approximately 3%).”

Explanation of the differences between actual and determined costs at charging zone level reported by the NSA

The NSA provides the following explanation for the differences between actual and determined costs in the charging zone:

“The higher than planned costs come as a logical consequence given the additional increase in traffic than the one envisaged in the PP for 2025. The drivers behind the growth in costs are mainly depreciation related to CAPEX projects and external services. Further analysis of depreciation is presented in Section 4 of this Report. External services increased mainly due to a specialised consultancy and software development service related to the implementation of the euro in Bulgaria as of 01.01.2026, a consultancy service related to the design and implementation of virtualization for operating systems, as well as services whose value is related to the minimum wage defined annually on the basis of the average wage for the country, health and life insurance costs.”

Recommendations formulated by the NSA to the ANSP (BULATSA) to rectify the situation and actions taken by the ANSP

No recommendations were formulated by the NSA to the ANSP since the DUC target was met in 2025.

Actual unit cost incurred by the users (AUCU) (PI#1)

AUCU components (€/SU) – 2025
€/SU
DUC 30.34
Inflation adjustment 0.00
Cost exempt from cost sharing -0.04
Traffic risk sharing adjustment -0.33
Traffic adjustment (costs not TRS) -0.11
Financial incentives 0.14
Modulation of charges 0.00
Cross-financing 0.00
Other revenues -0.13
Application of lower unit rate 0.00
Total adjustments -0.48
AUCU 29.87
AUCU vs. DUC -1.6%
Cost exempt from cost sharing by item - 2025 €'000 €/SU
New and existing investments 423.2 0.08
Competent authorities and qualified entities costs -571.7 -0.10
Eurocontrol costs -62.2 -0.01
Pension costs -3.9 0.00
Interest on loans 0.0 0.00
Changes in law 0.0 0.00
Total cost exempt from cost risk sharing -214.6 -0.04

En route AUCU monitoring at charging zone level

The actual en route unit cost incurred by airspace users (AUCU) in respect of activities performed in 2025 (29.87 €) is -1.6% lower than the nominal DUC (30.34 €). The difference between these two figures (-0.48 €/SU) is due to:

  • the impact of adjustments resulting from the costs exempted from cost sharing mechanism (-0.04 €/SU);

  • the deduction of the traffic risk sharing adjustments (-0.33 €/SU);

  • the deduction of the traffic adjustment (-0.11 €/SU) for the costs not subject to traffic risk sharing;

  • the impact of financial incentives (+0.14 €/SU); and,

  • the deduction of other revenues (-0.13 €/SU).

The share of the regulatory result (see next sub-section) in the AUCU (before the deduction of other revenues) is 9.8%.

Initiatives implemented or planned that will improve this PI reported by the NSA

No information on such initiatives was provided in the NSA 2025 Monitoring Report.

Regulatory result (RR)

BULATSA net gain/loss on activity in the Bulgaria en route charging zone in 2025

BULATSA reported a net gain of +2.9 M€, as a combination of a loss of -1.5 M€ arising from the cost sharing mechanism, with a gain of +3.7 M€ arising from the traffic risk sharing mechanism and a gain of +0.8 M€ relating to financial incentives.

BULATSA overall regulatory result (RR) for the en route activity

Ex-post, the overall RR, taking into account the net gain from the en route activity mentioned above (+2.9 M€) and the actual RoE (+13.2 M€), amounts to +16.2 M€ (10.4% of the en route revenues). The resulting ex-post rate of return on equity is 8.5%, which is higher than the 7.0% planned in the PP.