Nonstop flight route between Sofia, Bulgaria and Osaka, Japan:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF), Sofia, Bulgaria and Kansai International Airport (KIX), Osaka, Japan would travel a Great Circle distance of 5,590 miles (or 8,996 kilometers).

A Great Circle is the shortest distance between 2 points on a sphere. Because most world maps are flat (but the Earth is round), the route of the shortest distance between 2 points on the Earth will often appear curved when viewed on a flat map, especially for long distances. If you were to simply draw a straight line on a flat map and measure a very long distance, it would likely be much further than if you were to lay a string between those two points on a globe. Because of the large distance between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna and Kansai International Airport, the route shown on this map most likely appears curved because of this reason.

Try it at home! Get a globe and tightly lay a string between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna and Kansai International Airport. You'll see that it will travel the same route of the red line on this map!

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF):

• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna handled 350,432 passengers last year.
• The closest airport to Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) is Plovdiv Airport (PDV), which is located 86 miles (138 kilometers) ESE of SOF.
• The manager will have full visibility over the airport, to guide aircraft landing and taking off.
• A significant and recurring operational criticism of Sofia Airport has concerned its historical lack of all-weather operations capability.
• Two de-icing platforms are constructed to allow centralised de-icing procedures in winter.
• The furthest airport from Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,437 miles (18,405 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• In addition to being known as "Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna", other names for SOF include "Vrazhdebna Airport" and "Летище София".
• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) currently has only 1 runway.

Facts about Kansai International Airport (KIX):

• After the protests surrounding New Tokyo International Airport, which was built with expropriated land in a rural part of Chiba Prefecture, planners decided to build the airport offshore.
• The closest airport to Kansai International Airport (KIX) is Kobe Airport (UKB), which is located only 14 miles (22 kilometers) N of KIX.
• Because of Kansai International Airport's relatively low elevation of 17 feet, planes can take off or land at Kansai International Airport at a lower air speed than at airports located at a higher elevation. This is because the air density is higher closer to sea level than it would otherwise be at higher elevations.
• The airport was at its limit during peak times, owing especially to freight flights, so a portion of Phase II expansion—the second runway—was made a priority.
• In the 1960s, when the Kansai region was rapidly losing trade to Tokyo, planners proposed a new airport near Kobe and Osaka.
• On 17 January 1995, Japan was struck by the Kobe earthquake, whose epicenter was about 20 km away from KIX and killed 6,434 people on Japan's main island of Honshū.
• It is colloquially known as Kankū in Japanese.
• In addition to being known as "Kansai International Airport", other names for KIX include "関西国際空港" and "Kansai Kokusai Kūkō".
• Kansai International Airport (KIX) has 2 runways.
• The furthest airport from Kansai International Airport (KIX) is Rio Grande Regional Airport (RIG), which is located 11,980 miles (19,279 kilometers) away in Rio Grande, Brazil.
• Construction started in 1987.
• Terminal 2 is a low-cost carrier terminal designed to attract more LCCs by providing lower landing fees than terminal 1.
• Initially, the airport was planned to be built near Kobe, but the city of Kobe refused the plan, so the airport was moved to a more southerly location on Osaka Bay.
• On 19 April 2001, the airport was one of ten structures given the "Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium" award by the American Society of Civil Engineers.