It's curtains for Iron Curtain Row
Outside 19 Conduit Street on the edge of Mayfair in London, the brass plate still gleams. Sofia House, as it is named, is the home of Balkan Holidays Ltd.
This is the last surviving remnant of the capital's 'Iron Curtain Row'. Before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the communist dominoes began to tumble, the north side of Conduit Street was punctuated by outposts of eastern European tourist enterprises.
Berolina Travel represented the German Democratic Republic; Cedok championed Czechoslovakia. They were shop windows for prospective travellers to these now-extinct countries. East Germany merged with its larger, stronger Western neighbour, while Czechoslovakia split into its component parts.
Bulgaria, in contrast, maintained its presence in Conduit Street. Balkan Holidays was installed in Sofia House in the 1960s and became a hub for cut-price adventure. They needed hard currency, we needed cheap holidays. One brochure recognised our priorities. The essential information section began: 'Cigarettes: Bulgarian are very cheap indeed, but you can get English ones for 4/- [20p] for 20 and you can also bring 200 into the country. English newspapers can be had at your hotel. You will like the food and the national drinks, fruit of all varieties is especially good. As for the yoghourt, it is the best in the world.'
The line about gastronomy carries a touch of menace: 'You will like the food and the national drinks.' After all, this was a communist dictatorship answerable to the Kremlin. The flights were strictly Soviet, aboard ageing and incredibly noisy Tupolev aircraft. My first flight on the national airline, Balkan Bulgarian, was a charter from Gatwick. As the plane roared along the runway, the chief steward wandered through the smoking section asking for a light for one of his newly acquired American cigarettes.
On arrival, the Cyrillic script may have looked indecipherable, but the resorts were conveniently labelled Sunny Beach and Golden Sands. British tourists found themselves mingling with East Germans and Czechoslovaks, whom they would never meet in normal circumstances – some Cold War detente beside the warm waters of the Black Sea.
Unlike its former ideological neighbours in Conduit Street, Balkan Holidays took the collapse of communism in its stride. It had built up a useful business with a local focus – serving under-used airports such as Norwich, Humberside, Teesside and Southend. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that from some small regional airports you could fly off on holiday to anywhere you liked as long as it was Bulgaria.
This traditional package holiday model, with local travel agents feeding Balkan Holidays with business, endured longer than many expected. However, on the eve of the summer season, the company threw in the towel, saying: 'We regret to inform you that Balkan Holidays Ltd has closed for business in the UK.'
The news came as an unwelcome shock to tens of thousands of holidaymakers with summer bookings. But it was a highly unusual closure. Balkan Holidays did not follow Thomas Cook into financial oblivion: the firm remains solvent, and is handing back clients' cash as fast as it can. So why, with millions of pounds already taken and customers eager to travel, would a company lock the door and walk away? Competition, that's why.
For a couple of decades after the no-frills revolution began in 1995 with the launch of easyJet, Balkan Holidays' business was largely unaffected as budget airlines concentrated on France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. But in 2025, they have all discovered Bulgaria.
Look at the main Black Sea airport, Bourgas. This weekend Jet2 will fly in passengers from Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands and Manchester. EasyJet arrives from Gatwick and Manchester. Both companies offer holidays at prices that reflect their economies of scale and purchasing muscle. The ultra-low cost carriers have joined in: Wizz Air touches down at Bourgas from Luton, up against Ryanair on the same route.
Balkan Holidays was one-250th of the size of Jet2, and it could not compete on price. With many hotel beds and plane seats to fill, the parent company took the view that cancelling the summer programme and handing back cash was the least bad option.
The decision is bleak news for customers whose hearts and hopes were set on a cheap and cheerful escape from their local airport. It will be impossible for them to find an exact like-for-like replacement, and they may end up spending more for something sub-optimal. But Balkan Holidays has had a magnificent run – delivering plenty of joy to its niche market from its niche on Iron Curtain Row.
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