So we’re approaching the 3 weeks till take off
mark now (we're at 22 days left). So much has been going on in
preparation for this trip and I’m beginning to get nervous now. I’ve got one of the shortest international
connections (in Zurich) that I’ve ever done, at 1hr and 5 minutes. I’m visiting some new and upcoming European
hotspots, and flying out of/into/via, not 1, but 5 airports I’ve never done
before. You think that’s strange when
going out of Australia, but surprisingly it’s not. I’ve never transited via Bangkok’s
Suvarnabhumi airport since it opened.
Nis Konstantin Veliki is new to many and probably my most exciting one
yet, Banja Luka, Tivat, and Frankfurt – yes another one that you might think
how is that possible!
So since the last posting I’ve had an
addition to the trip which is with Air Serbia on their flights from Banja Luka
via Belgrade to Tivat, and then back to Belgrade again.
I have to admit though, that my first
impressions with Air Serbia on this occasion are not quite as pleasant as the
last time I flew with them. This time
round I’m on ATR aircraft, and that’s all fine.
But when I purchased the tickets through the GDS (yes I’m a travel
agent), I expected that I would be able to allocate seating for myself, pay the
fee imposed, and continue on my merry way.
Low and behold, that is not the case. For an airline that uses a world renowned GDS
system – same as the company I work for – you would expect functionality to
align. Every time I attempted to book
the seats it let me request, but upon saving, would cancel it out and tell me
it’s unable to confirm. Now while I
understand a fee is involved to allocate a seat, and I’m willing to pay this, I
thought I would log into their website and do the same – nope same problem
there too. Upon contacting the local
Sydney office, I was told by one of the staff in a response that they have
arranged my seating – ok yep that’s great – I check my booking and still unable
to confirm. I then contact their office
in Belgrade, only to be advised by them that I could log in and proceed to
arrange the seats there. The most
frustrating thing was that there is a whole “e-paper trail” below and no one
has seen what has actually been the case, nor resolved the problem – and we are
talking about 10 days now that this is going!
In my previous posting I mentioned a number
of airlines on this trip, of which I have a flight with Atlasglobal. These guys too don’t allow me any option to
preselect any seating, and that’s fine – they’re almost a charter service with
regular services that they sell as opposed to being a fully-fledged
airline. Air Serbia over the years has
attempted to bring itself up to the state of these global players, yet behaves
in many ways like the charter carriers.
While Air Serbia is dear to me, from a
patriotic sense, they really do need to pull their socks up on this topic. Patriotism doesn’t keep a business going, and
service to all travelers should be identical.
Hopefully the “on the ground” and “in the air” experiences will make up
for the lack of service received so far to date.
So yes, after a whirlwind of work travel, I’ve
decided that I need to break it up with a bit of a break in the Montenegrin
seaside town of Becici (Bechichi). Since
it’s my first time going, I’d be keen to hear from anyone who has had any
experiences, or has any pointers on things to do and see for 2 full days. My 3rd full day (or first to be
exact out of the 3) will be spent next to the pool, and the only time I intend
to get up is to get a drink from the bar, or jump into the pool...
I look forward to hearing from you!
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