Sofia Airport has serviced 322,077 passengers in September, up 19 per cent year-on-year, the press service of the airport said on Friday.

The increased number of passengers is due to tourist charters, whose number went up 46 per cent compared to September 2007. The number of taking-off and landing aircraft rose 20 per cent from 3,875 in September 2007 to 4,658.

The processed cargo freight and post parcels in September 2008 rose to 1,588 from 1,333 for the same month of 2007.

A total of 2,490,946 passengers have passed through the Sofia Airport for the nine months of 2008, up 19 per cent year-on-year from 2,086,273 for the nine months of the last year. More than 3,100,000 passengers are expected to be serviced by the airport until the year-end.

About 20 per cent of close to 500,000 are the passengers who flew in January - September 2008 with budget airlines operating from the Sofia Airport.

The processed cargo freight and post parcels for the nine months of 2008 increased to 13,734 from 13,072 for 2007.