The check-in waiting times in Zagreb are twice as long as in the rest of Europe.
At least six passengers who wanted to travel to Brussels on Monday morning from the Zagreb International Airport and an unknown number of those who were supposed to fly to Frankfurt did not manage to check-in for their flights, although they arrived at the airport at least an hour and a half before the flights, reports Jutarnji List on September 27, 2017.
The drama took place around 5.30 am on Monday morning, caused by mistakes made by local and foreign air carriers, but most of all, according to passengers, because of the disorganisation and slowness of airport personnel who did not manage to check in all the passengers.
“Never in my life have I been in such a situation. People were waiting in long lines for the flights, but we quickly realized that the line was too slow and that we would not arrive in time, even though we came to the airport an hour and a half before the flight. My daughter decided to leave the line and do the check-in herself, but when she tried, it turned out that her ticket was missing. When we finally arrived at the check in counter, we were informed that there were no more seats on the flight and that we would not fly to Frankfurt until the next day,” said one passenger.
The same problem, but on a flight to Brussels, had another passenger who was supposed to fly with Croatia Airlines. “I often travel, but I do not remember that I’ve ever had such a situation. I was standing in the line as early as 5.20 am, and there were two check-in counters for my flight to Frankfurt. However, the line did not move, and at one point even the airport realised that something was wrong and opened a few new counters. That did not help either. I came to the counter at 6.10 pm, just 40 minutes before the flight, and they told me to go to the Croatia Airlines’ counter. There I received a notice that there was no seat left in the airplane, despite the fact that I had a ticket.”
Croatia Airlines acknowledged that there was overbooking on the flight to Brussels on Monday, so six passengers with purchased tickets failed to board the plane. Lufthansa, which was operating the flight to Frankfurt, did not comment on the problem.
“Croatia Airlines monitors the average number of passengers on each flight, as well as data on the number of travelers who, although they have purchased tickets, do not come to their flights. According to this data, we manage the capacity on individual flights, and overbooking rarely happens. All passengers on the morning flight who were denied boarding were put on the next flight to their final destination, and we apologise to all those who had travel inconvenience,” said Croatia Airlines in a statement.
Nevertheless, it seems that on Monday morning a much bigger problem was the insufficient number of check-in counters, due to which many passengers failed to board their planes in time. As confirmed by the airport, on Monday morning from 5 to 8 am, the employees managed to check in 581 outgoing passengers at 13 open check-in counters. In the period of 5 to 6 am, just ten counters were open.
According to airport data, the ground crews spent a little bit more than four minutes on each passenger, while European standards provide for an average of two minutes per passenger. The Zagreb Airport, therefore, takes twice as long to check in each passenger than is the European average.
According to the information from the trade union, after the arrival of the concessionaire at the Franjo Tuđman Airport, the number of ground staff decreased by 10 percent. “Before the concessionaire came, we had 500, and now we have 450 members of the ground staff. At the same time, we have noted an increase in the number of passengers by 15 percent, which makes it obvious that we suffer from the lack of workers,” said the president of the trade union Dragan Filipović.
Translated from Jutarnji List.
