TRIP REPORT: Air Montenegro, Zurich - Podgorica

TRIP REPORT

Written by George Papathanasiou

It was a good opportunity to see the city of Podgorica and visit the Ostrog Monastery. Air Montenegro does not offer e-check-in, so you have to go to the counter. Also they advise you to be at Zurich Airport 3 hours before the flight, I went 2 hours before the flight and when I saw some other passengers in the queue I was relaxed that they would not deny me boarding. Check-in counters are on the first floor of check-in area 2 row 5. They use the same counters as Aegean Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines.

After you get your boarding pass you go to the 2nd floor where the departure gates are.

After the security check, you are in the main Terminal for intra-Schengen flights. In order to access extra-Schengen flights, you must proceed to Terminal E. To do that you have to go down 2 floors, get through passport control and get the train.

At this time of day, there were no interesting departures.

By the time I reached Terminal E the plane was at the gate and people were around the boarding area. I noticed that during this time of year, Air Montenegro is operating only two E195 aircraft of the three that they have. 4O-AOA & 4O-AOB which were taken over from the bankrupt Montenegro Airlines. They were delivered in 2008 and 2009.

Boarding started on time by one staff member and there was not priority for families with children. People rushed to the checking person and families with baby strollers blocked the path. It was rather disorganised. Getting to the aircraft through an aerobridge, we were welcomed by a male crew member, and you notice that Air Montenegro offers Business class (no passengers on this flight) in the two front rows. Then the same seats continue into economy class in a 2X2 configuration.

Seats are very comfortable with good legroom.

There were some announcements from the cockpit, and then the head crew welcomed us and started the manual safety presentation. Departure was on time for the 1 hour 45 minutes flight.

After leveling the aircraft they started the inflight service, which consisted of soft cookies stuffed with fig and a small bottle of water.

After that, it was time to check the wc, but before that, I took a picture of the cabin

WC was plain but clean

After that I returned to my seat and soon we started our descent. Up to this time it was an uneventful flight. We went through the clouds and we approached TGD. It was raining but I noticed we were flying parallel to the landing strip, I thought we were going to land from the other end. We turned and as we were approaching, a thunderstorm started. We aborted the landing process and started climbing again. We were circling around Podgorica three times. Although, I got a nice opportunity to see the moon.

After 30 minutes and three turns, the pilot announced that we were heading to Tirana, Albania. We reached our destination and when the plane stopped, passengers got up thinking that we will overnight in Tirana. There were speculations that a bus would take us to Podgorica, but I was hopeful that we would fly buck because the plane had to do a Belgrade flight after our flight. Seventy minutes after we landed at TIA, we started our flight back to TGD. It was a bumpy ride, but we reached our destination and we successfully landed.

Outside it was raining cats and dogs. They brought a bus to get us to the Terminal.

There was so much water everywhere, that I thought I would have a problem reaching my hotel. I found a taxi and we arrived at my hotel with a 3-hour delay. No problem, because the next day I had scheduled  a free tour of Podgorica though GuruWalk and then hired a car to see the Ostrog Monastery before catching my flight to Athens with Aegean Airlines, more of which I will have in my next report.

---

Share your travel experience by submitting a trip report to exyu@exyuaviation.com

---