What a beautiful day for traveling, it is sunny, clear.and very little traffic getting to the airport. The plan was to use my frequent flyer miles to upgrade to business class for the trip. United Airlines sent me an upgrade voucher and in the back of my head it just seemed like things weren’t quite right. I called United twice to confirm that the voucher was for the whole trip both ways (because it sure looked like it was for just one flight.) Twice I was reassured that everything was in order; the voucher would be good for the whole trip.
Sure enough when I got to the airport, not only was there no record of my request for an upgrade, the voucher would only be honored for one flight. Why am I not surprised. And of course at the airport, where the airlines actually do their business, there isn’t anybody you can talk to. No, one must call to the phone center. In the end it worked out for now. I was upgraded to business. For the return I’ll need to work something out (or possibly just forget about it.) One thing is for sure, there is going to be an angry letter in United Airline’s waste bin when I get home.
But that was really not the end of the world; certainly not something to get too upset about. I flew on Lufthansa to Frankfurt. The flight was very nice and the Lufthansa cabin crew were very friendly. It was an uneventful flight. I wasn’t able to sleep on the plane but there were enough things to amuse myself, including Dumbo on the in-flight entertainment.
Frankfurt is a huge airport, filled with people coming and going. You see airlines from all over the world at Frankfurt. Perhaps the most interesting was an Uzbekistan Airlines airplane. It is remarkable to think that not only do we have the ability to go from any point in the world to another in a matter of about 24-36 hours, but also we live in a time where there are enough people who need to get to far off destinations on a daily basis.
I had about a three hour layover in Frankfurt. Most of that time was spent watching some men repair and escalator. As goofy as it sounds it was interesting to watch them work.
Finally the time for my flight came; Frankfurt to Ljubljana on Adria airlines, Slovenia’s national carrier. When I think of national carriers I usually think if larger airlines like British Airways or Air France, airlines that make flights in huge planes all over the world. But Slovenia is a small country and thus have a small fleet of small planes. Our plane was too small to even park at a terminal so we took a bus out to the tarmac out to the plane. If the plane held even 100 people I would be surprised. (I think it was a Canadair 320 regional jet.) From what I could tell the passengers consisted of mainly American and Canadian tourists and Slovenes head home.
Ljubljana’s airport in Brnik International. It serves almost all flights coming into and leaving the country. It is perhaps the smallest airport I have ever been to. It’s not much more than a landing strip and a small building.