It was a cold winter afternoon, one of those when you just want to take the plane and fly away.
Browsing the web I encountered a special offer - the new born airline Volotea was giving away tickets for only 9,99 euros.
I did not wait even for 5 minutes - while searching the right destination and the right day I texted to my friend if he would like to make this foolish trip with me. He said yes. The BlitzTrip was born.
But what exactly a BlitzTrip is?
Nowadays young people have a lot opportunities - in the era of our parents there were no open borders, no low-cost carriers, no hostels and no internet to book the cheapest price.
A BlitzTrip is a condensed trip to another location elsewhere in the world. The point of the whole experience is to know new places, meet new people and understand the meaning of distance spending less time and money as possible.
The choice went to Southern Italy, more precisely to Bari, a city in Puglia.
A day trip for a few euros was perfectly feasible - since I live close enough to Venice airport, which is one of Volotea's main hubs.
I made the check-in on the airline's website the night before the trip.
Boarding pass printed, ID card ready, car tank full of fuel.
At Venice Marco Polo airport we went through the security check straight to the gate, were we waited for a couple of minutes. A bus picked us up and in a few seconds we were near the plane.
The boarding went fast and the plane was almost full. We were delayed for 20 minutes due to a tecnichal check, but the crew distributed water and non-alcoholic drinks for free - that is quite unusual for a no-frills carrier, but they are obliged to do it in case of delays with the passengers.
The flight was very smooth, with the except of the descend and the landing in Bari, which was quite turbulent and windy.
We de-boarded immediately and went straight out of the airport, catched the fast airport shuttle "Tempesta bus" and in 20 minutes we were in the city center.
A few shots of Bari at night.
In a few hours we visited the old city, called "Bari vecchia", and headed back to the airport by taxi.
The return flight had a 30-minute delay, due to bad weather in Verona, from where the aircraft was coming. But - we were lucky - at the airport I saw a lot of angry Ryanair passengers, they were waiting for their plane for 6 hours...
The flight back was almost empty - on the 125-seater B717-200 i counted around 30 passengers. A very interesting thing about this flight was the fact that we were flying on the same aircraft than we flew to Bari - the B717-200 EC-LQI, also with the same crew.
A very positive thing about Volotea is their crew - very international. The pilots were Spanish, two stewards from Italy and Spain and one good-looking flight attendant from Melbourne, Australia. The interior was almost new and clean, with grey leather slim-line seats.
We flew along the Italian Adriatic coast, descended and landed in Venice. Obviously, after landing I went to the cockpit for the mandatory shot ;)
My overall rating of the experience with Volotea is positive. When flying with them you don't have that cheap feeling as on Ryanair. But, they aren't even a year old, so let's wait and see what will happen.
And, I know. My English sucks :)
Here I have some information for Aviation Geeks:
Flight Volotea V7-1234, 18th January 2013
Venice Marco Polo VCE/LIPZ - Bari Palese BRI/LIBD
16:10-17:25
Boeing B717-200, EC-LQI, 10 years old
Engines 2x BMW RR BR715
Flight Volotea V7-1235, 18th January 2013
Bari Palese BRI/LIBD - Venice Marco Polo VCE/LIPZ
21:25-22:45
Boeing B717-200, EC-LQI, 10 years old
Engines 2x BMW RR BR715
Stay tuned for new BlizTrip reports, coming soon ;)
