Flying the Flag (the airline post)

Given I've been on the receiving end of some pretty bad (well not THAT bad, but it's not over yet so I don't want to jinx it) plane karma, I feel it's only necessary to write about it.

Before I write about interesting stuff, I need to externalise the bad plane-karma that has somehow come my way (why I'll never know: what did I do to deserve this?).

I'm now in Serbia, and have stopped off twice to get there. Only one leg has gone smoothly, and I'd like to put that down to Nordic efficiency. Perhaps.
Anyway, my Jetstar international experience was bollocks.Instead of flying Syd-Osaka, I had to fly via Cairns (never a choice destination for... anyone really) and then to Japan, which meant i missed my connection in Kyoto and was nearly stuck at Kansai International Airport overnight. Jetstar were bollocks. No help. So, as if you needed any further proof not to fly them, well, then, there it is. The staff on the plane were nice, but as with all budget airlines, there's a certain "almost-but-not-quite-as-good-as-the-full-price-version" about them. Ditto the food, colour-scheme, tickets and seats of the plane.

So, after a night in Osaka (thank you Comfort Inn) and the complsary visit to Daimaru, i was off to Kyoto.

The bad karma stayed dormant for my flight to Europe: the Finnair flght was great, ok service by an older Finnair crew who were the air hostess equivalent of hefty middle-aged soldiers. Lots of finnish design though: even the paper cups were Marimekko prints!

The flight to Helsinki was mainly full of Japanese package-deal tourists who were very quiet but couldn't read numbers in the latin script. Helsinki airport is a very modern airport, with lots of great shopping, though I wouldn't recommend that you fly Finnair with that in mind (it is however, a pretty good airline).
Rome is actually 3 hours away from Helsinki: no I didn't think it was that far away either.
Woah, this post has turned into a lot of nothing hasn't it?
Well, the next plane trip i took brought back the bad plane karma, so that's at least a bit more interesting.
JAT airways ("it's not called Yugoslav Airways anymore: our country doesn't exist either") flies out of Terminal C at Rome's Fiumicino airport. This terminal is a bit like if the UN had a political grouping called "Eastern Europe and Others": it's for intercontinental and pov-country (aka those not within the glorious boundaries of the Schengen) flights. So flights to the States, Israel, Japan, South-East Asia(long-haul) were lumped with those going to Tunisia, Egypt, Kiev, Chisinau, Turkey, Serbia and my personal favourite, UZbekistani Air. I'm so grateful that the breakup of the Soviet Union brought these colourful airlines to Western Europes shores.
The JAT plane was old. I think it was probably older than many of the cast of Home and Away, and it was definitely older than Eastern European democracy. The armrests were cracked, the seats an almost late-70's print, and the walls flocked with strange dollops of the national colours, red, white and blue.
What was most hilarious was the staff. They just didn't give a shit. The captain actually stopped talking half-way through the safety demonstration and the steward who told the row of passengers in the emergency exit row bascially said to them " You sit here, listen to me now. If we crash door will open, you will help and that is all." It obviously sounds much better in heavily accented english, but I think you get my drift.
Anyway, I obviously spoke too soon in my critique of the airline (linked inherently with national pride, langauge and the way of life) because on arrival almost half the plane's baggage had been left in Rome (clearly I wasn't the only one who found the plane amusing). I've been trying to call the airline, but I think that they are taking a traditionally long Eastern European lunch (why couldn't they invite us!?) and it doesn't connect.
No,of course I have checked that the number is the right one, etc etc!
But I'll be off to ring them again now.
ciaoski darlski