Balkan Experience - Sofia, Bulgaria to Ahmedabad, India- 4/5 October 2026

My plan was to reach the Sofia airport at least 3 hours in advance as web check-in facility is not available for code share flights. With this in mind I had scheduled to check out of the hotel by 5.30 am. I was able to meet the deadline and walked out of the main door of the hotel to face a nippy weather. The Metro station, just 300 metres from the hotel, was reached in less than 10 minutes.

I used the currency note/coin-operated ticket vending machine to buy a ticket. The fare is 0.80€, which can be used to transit between metro lines within 30 minutes. I had to take the Blue Line for three stations and tranship on to the Yellow Line at Serdica to go to the airport. The transit to the airport, including the changeover, was smooth and easy. I reached the airport by 6.30 am, as planned.

The check-in counter opened shortly thereafter, and I completed the process quickly. Initially, the girl at the check-in counter booked my baggage through to Ahmedabad. I asked her if that was the right thing to do, because I knew that even though boarding passes are issued through to the final destination if it's a single PNR, baggage has to be collected at the first port of entry, where immigration would also be completed. Thereafter, the bag has to be handed over at the transit desk of the airline prior to going for the domestic boarding gate. The counter clerk went over the rules and apologised for the mistake. She reissued the baggage tag and handed over all three boarding passes, Sofia to Istanbul, Istanbul to Mumbai and Mumbai to Ahmedabad.

The Passport Control was just before entering the gates for international departure. near gate. The Turkish Airlines flight left Sofia 30 minutes late for Istanbul. That didn't matter to me a wee bit as I had a layover in Istanbul close to 7 hours!

Gates are announced in Istanbul airport only about 75 minutes to scheduled departure. I used the time to plan the next trip to Kosovo and Montenegro later this month. I had just a cup of coffee in Istanbul airport, which is relatively quite expensive. The medium sized cappuccino cost me the equivalent of Rs. 700.

The Indigo flight boarded on time and departed exactly as announced at 1755 hours. The long flight was quite uneventful. We were served a meal and a snack during the flight. The flight touched down in Mumbai before time at 4.05 am. Immigration was over quickly. But baggage retrieval took some time. However, again it did not matter because of the four and half hour’s layover in Mumbai for the flight to Ahmedabad.

The duty free in Mumbai was as busy as usual. While picking up a couple of liquor bottles, I mentioned to the staff in the duty-free shop that I would be travelling to Ahmedabad. He told me to inform the counter staff, at the time of making the payment, so that the bottles can be placed in a sealed bag. I deposited the bag at the Indigo domestic transfer desk after securing the bottles in the check-in bag.

The inconvenience of staying in Gandhidham is that one has to travel nearly 6 hours by road to reach the Ahmedabad international airport. This travel is inevitable because of the poor railway connectivity and/or poor connections from Bhuj or Rajkot airports. By the time I reached my house in Gandhidham I had spent more than 32 hours since leaving the hotel in Sofia the previous morning!