Croatia Airlines flight OU493 was supposed to depart London Heathrow (LHR) at 1050am. When I woke up in the morning and looked outside; with my little experience working at London Heathrow I knew that Croatia Airlines flight OU492 would not even get to London by 1050am. This is because there was soo much fog and therefore Air Traffic Control would increase the separation between landing aircrafts and this in-turn causes massive delays.
I phoned up operations and found out that the Croatia Airline flight to London had not even left Zagreb (ZAG) and was 3hours late and was getting to London only at 1315. Hence I decided to stay at home and goto the airport late. I infact left home at 1030pm when the scheduled departure was at 1050am. Don't try this because check-in technically closes at 1020 even though the flight is delayed.
I got to the airport at 1145 and Anita the airport representative was pissed with me for showing up late and that check-in was closed. After shouting at me she was ever so kind to accept me. I had told her the day before that I was travelling today as we get concession tickets from Croatia Arlines. Fortunately she had checked me in and hadn't cancelled by boarding number. The discounted ticket cost £77.30. Last time I paid about £47.
Anita told me that in Zagreb on the inbound flight to London after all the passengers had boarded the aeroplane, London had sent a message asking them not to depart Zagreb for another 1.5 hour due to fog and to ease the traffic. In airline jargon this is called a SLOT. Essentiall say on a normal day a flight was supposed to leave the gate at 0900 and be airborne (take off) by 0915. When the aircraft gets a slot at say 1045 that means that flight must be airborne (take off) at or around 1045 not before and not after. Because that is a space in the airways. Mostly this happens on very busy air routes especially London Heathrow.
My flight was supposed to leave london at 1050 and then goto Split which is southern Croatia and then goto Zagreb at 1545. However due to the delayed slot the flight got before leaving ZAG even though the flight didn't leave the crew was still technically on duty. Since the delay would exceed their flight time limitations the airline decided not to go to Split and go straight to Zagreb which was good for me because the entire extent of the delay wouldn't affect me.
The flight finally departed at 1430 (1530 Croatia time). Anita was kind enough to upgrade me to business class at the gate and she even put a Priority HON tag on my baggage. Essentially HON status is given to paying passengers who does a ridiculous amount of airmiles a year on the Star Alliance network a couple of hundred thousand airmiles. Essentially you got to be travelling like every 3-4 days.
During the flight I was served a chicken meal and in my vegetarian status I ate chicken and didn't like it and it didnt feel good. Another re-assuarance that I don't wanna eat chicken.
We passed the alps and it was absolutely stunning to see the range of snow covered mountain peaks. I really want to go there and check it out one day.
The flight got to ZAG at 1730 local time. After being the last to check-in my bag was the first to arrive. I took the bus to the main bus station where I would meet my friend Veseljka. Ves got a little late so she sent her friend Marija to meet me. We went and checked the times and ticket price to Belgrade (Beograd). The first bus at 810am costing 210 Kunas and next at 0900 costing 180 Kunas. I decided on the 180 ticket.
Met Veseljka and then we took a tram to her place. In the tram for the first time in my life on this public transport system conductors got in and asked for tickets and obviously we didn't have. I did the whole ignorant tourist and asked if I could by a ticket now they said yes and 200 Kunas which is 20 times the normal ticket price. They spoke with Ves and asked us to get down.Ves paid 50 Kunas for both of us for which the conductors gave us 2 ickets and they let us go. Apparently over here you don't offer a bribe because you don't know if the conductor is a good guy or a corrupt guy. So you say you don't have 200 Kunas with you and wait for them to make the opening line "So what shall we do now?" question and then you negotiate a price in between. A bit like asking a policeman "Can I pay a spot fine?" back in Sri Lanka when you get caught for speeding/mobile phone usage or whatever. In Zagreb it is also possible to buy a ticket using a mobile phone. Essentially you send a text to this number and it charges you and sends a confirmation text. So most people when they see a conductor getting on in the next stop quickly pay using the mobile.
My friend Veckey from Belgrade sent me a text informing me that there is going to be a demonstration on the 21st with regard to self proclaimed independence by the Kosovo people and its rejection by Belgrade, Serbia. She said to see if I can delay my arrival by a few hours. Then I thought of going to Novi Sad instead of Belgrade first.
She also said in another text that it might be a peaceful protest and that it might be interesting to witness it.
Ves and I chatted till about 12 midnight and then I helped her with some office work and went to sleep around 0130.
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