Wizz Air is adding Switzerland to the short list of places you can reach without changing planes at Varna. The airline, Bulgaria's largest by market share, says it will start flying between Varna and Basel on 27 October 2026, twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays, with one-way fares advertised from €29.99. Tickets are already on sale through the Wizz Air website and app.
On the face of it this is a routine tourism-and-business announcement, another dot on the map from the coast. For a Brit living in the northeast, though, the more useful part is not Basel itself. It is what sits a short hop beyond it.
What Wizz Air is actually offering
The schedule is lean but usable: two rotations a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, starting on 27 October. That date is worth a second glance, because it lands right as the airline industry's winter timetable takes over from the summer one. This is a route being added as the sun-seekers pack up, not during the July rush.
The €29.99 lead-in fare is the usual Wizz Air come-on: it covers the administrative fee and one small cabin bag, maximum 40x30x20 cm, and nothing else. A wheeled cabin bag, a larger case or anything in the hold costs extra, and the cheapest seats are capped in number and only sold through Wizz Air's own website or app. Travel with hand luggage only and the advertised price is roughly what you pay; travel like a normal person with a suitcase and it climbs.
Basel becomes the fifth unique Wizz Air route from Varna, on top of a network the carrier puts at 23 routes to 13 countries. Wizz Air has eleven Airbus A321neo aircraft based in Bulgaria, three of them at Varna, and says it has carried more than 5.7 million passengers to and from the city since it started flying there in 2007. Through the summer 2026 season it runs 46 flights a week out of Varna. None of that is unusual for Wizz Air, which grows by adding thin twice-weekly routes and thickening the ones that work.
Basel is a door to three countries, and to the UK
Basel sits where Switzerland, France and Germany meet, and its airport reflects that: EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg is a genuinely tri-national field, physically on French soil but serving all three countries, with separate Swiss and French exits inside the terminal. The city itself is a comfortable weekend in its own right, with a red-sandstone cathedral over the Rhine, the Kunstmuseum and the Tinguely museum, and the little current-driven ferries that cross the river without an engine.
The reason this matters to a British reader has nothing to do with the museums. EuroAirport is one of easyJet's low-cost hubs, and the airline flies from Basel to both London Gatwick and London Luton. easyJet's own booking pages and the main fare aggregators show several departures a day on that pairing, a flight time of about one hour forty-five, and one-way fares from roughly £34. String the two legs together and, from 27 October, a Brit near Varna has a plausible budget route home that does not route through Sofia: a €29.99 hop to Basel, then a cheap easyJet leg into London.
The catch, and it is a real one
Before anyone books it as a UK connection, the honest warning. These are two separate tickets on two separate airlines, which means it is a self-transfer, not a protected connection. If the Varna leg runs late and you miss the easyJet flight, no one owes you a rebooking or a refund; you buy a new ticket. You also have to collect your bag at Basel and check it in again, clear the airport's border arrangements, and allow a long gap between flights rather than a tight one. Done with hand luggage and a generous layover it is a sensible bit of budget routing. Done with a suitcase and ninety minutes to spare it is a gamble. Treat the Basel link as a cheap option to plan around, not a through-ticket.
Why this matters for British expats
Varna is the closest airport to Shumen, a little under ninety kilometres and about an hour down the road, so its route list is effectively the route list for a large chunk of northeastern Bulgaria's British community. Anyone in Shumen who has driven down to Varna in January knows how thin the winter departures board can look once the summer charters go home. A twice-weekly link that opens just as the winter schedule begins is, at the least, one more off-peak way off the coast, and at best a soft back door to the UK for the quiet months.
It is a modest addition, not a game-changer, and Wizz Air's thinner routes have been known to come and go. But for a household weighing up how to get back for Christmas without the Sofia drive, it is worth knowing the option now exists. Our getting around Bulgaria guide covers the wider picture of moving between the coast, the capital and the UK.
Sources and further reading
The route details, fares and Wizz Air's Varna figures come from Novinite's report of the airline's announcement, corroborated by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency and Bulgarian National Radio. The Basel-to-London leg is drawn from easyJet's published Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg schedules and the main fare aggregators.