December 22, 2010
Croatia 451, AMS-ZAG
A319, 9A-CTI
Scheduled (Actual) Departure Time: 11:20am (11:50)
Scheduled (Actual) Arrival Time: 1:10pm (2:04)
Duration: 2:50 Seat: 19D
When the time came, I made my way to the transfer desk and checked in for my Croatia Airlines flights to Dubrovnik. While the Lufthansa agent in Seattle said they would waitlist me for business class on this flight, upon checking in I found that the aircraft was going to be flown in an all Coach configuration. Oh well.
As we got closer to departure time, I began the lengthy trek to the departure gate at the far reaches of the D pier and found a long line of folks waiting to get through security mixed with passengers coming off the incoming flight from Zagreb, some of whom joined the line for the flight back to Zagreb just because they thought it was the place to be. Since the inbound was late, outbound passengers were held in the gate area for longer than would be ideal, but eventually an announcement was made and a scrum towards the plane began with no semblance, or attempt at, organization.
View of Star Alliance A319 in foggy Amsterdam
As we boarded, copies of some Croatian newspaper were sitting on a cart by the boarding door…this particular edition seemed to be especially popular amongst a certain segment of the passengers as it contained a 2011 calendar featuring topless photos of a (popular?) model. Once onboard, I secured bin space for my carry on and plopped into my seat and admired what was probably the oldest looking A319 I’d been in. Judging by how the plane looked, I wondered if the seats had been taken from an older aircraft and put into this Airbus. Although I was seated near the back of the aircraft, I realized that the legroom wouldn’t have been any better had I been in business class, as originally scheduled:
Although boarding was relatively quick, the general chaos of the process meant that several people were standing in the aisles looking for somewhere to place their luggage after the “boarding complete” announcement was made. Once everyone was seated, it was announced that we would be further delayed due to air traffic control limitations due to the lingering low clouds around the airport. When we finally pushed back, we were treated to a cartoon safety demo on drop-down screens, once in Croatian, once in English, and then proceeded to taxi around the airport for over half an hour (and I don’t mean that we waited to takeoff for half an hour, I mean that we did at least three laps of the airport on the ground) before finally taking off nearly an hour after our scheduled departure time.
Even as we continued to climb, the flight attendants were up and about and soon were coming through the aisles with carts distributing lunch consisting of cold chicken pieces, marinated veggies, cream cheese, a square of apple pie and a traditional Croatian cookie:
As coach food goes, it was better than anything I’ve had in the U.S. in quite a while (ha!) and was tastier than a similar meal I’d had on Lufthansa a couple years ago, principally because the roll was soft enough and you could bite into it without chipping a tooth. I was a bit disappointed in the apple pie square, though, as until I cut into it I thought it was baklava. The beverage cart (including wine!) followed slowly behind the food cart.
We encountered turbulence mid-flight and it was announced that coffee and tea service would not be available due to the bumps. I dozed off and on throughout the flight and soon enough we had commenced our decent into a snowy, cloudy Zagreb.
I’d been scheduled to have nearly an hour and a half layover in Zagreb but since we were late out of Amsterdam I now had less than half an hour to get through immigration and customs, re-clear security, and make it to my flight. Zagreb Airport lacks jetways but with busses waiting at both the front and rear doors we were able to de-plane quickly and were dropped out at immigration and joined the lines of those with other flights arriving at that time.
December 22, 2010
Croatia 384, ZAG-DBV
A320, 9A-CTK
Scheduled (Actual) Departure Time: 2:35pm (3:00)
Scheduled (Actual) Arrival Time: 3:30pm (3:45)
Duration: 0:55 Seat: 7F
I may not understand the rules correctly, but from what I could determine from what the agents and the signage in the immigration hall said, transit passengers (or at least those with close connections) are allowed to cut to the front of the line for immigration. An agent guided several of us headed towards Dubrovnik to the front of the queue at one of the immigration podiums and, since I had carried my luggage from Seattle, I was quickly able to make my way through customs. From customs, it’s a bit of a walk to the left past rental car counters, ticketing, and check-in to the main security checkpoint for departures, and it was in the slow moving lines here (without apparent permission to cut) that I nearly missed my flight. It was after 2:30 (but definitely not yet 2:35) when I made it to my departure gate and stumbled onto the bus out to the aircraft.
As my luck would have it, once onboard we proceeded to sit for another 20 minutes to wait on additional connecting passengers. Once we were on our way, the flight was uneventful, we were only in the air for about 45 minutes during which time we were offered a traditional Croatian cookie, and a choice of still or sparkling water. Prior to arrival, as had also occurred on my flight into Zagreb, the overhead monitors dropped down and played a ten second “happy holidays” clip before retracting again; this appeared to be the extent of IFE available on Croatia.
We landed in Dubrovnik about a half hour behind schedule and were taken on an absurdly short bus ride to Dubrovnik’s shiny, new looking terminal.