incident with Croatia Airlines, April 27th 2007

Dear Star Alliance,

I am writing to report an incident my wife and I had involving

Croatian Airlines from Sarajevo to Rome via Zagreb.

We had purchased tickets from an accredited travel agent in Sarajevo,

" V.I.P Travels", to fly to Rome (FCO) on a Star Alliance carrier for

April 27th. The ticket indicated that the Croatian Airlines flight was

flying over Zagreb and connecting directly to Rome. To double check,

our agent called Croatian Airlines to make sure my wife, who is a

Belorussian citizen, would not need a transit visa for Croatia if she

took this flight. Croatian Airlines representatives told her that it

was indeed an internaitonal flight. Upon check-in, our baggage was

registered by Croatian Airlines to Zagreb-Rome FCO, like any

international flights with connections. However, upon landing at our

connection point in Zagreb, a border security guard asked to see our

tickets. He explained my wife would not be able to fly on to Rome

because she did not have a transit visa through Croatia. I explained

to him that we are international travelers, but he said that there is

no direct international flight from Zagreb to Rome. He explained the

flight passes over Split, although there is no indication of this on

our tickets. I said this cannot be, and showed him my tickets. He then

called a representative of Croatian Airways (who seemed very familiar

with this problem) who begged the border guards to grant my wife a

transit visa in order to fly to Rome. These border guards relented

after much persistence, but explained that my wife would need a

transit visa to fly back to Sarajevo via Croatian Airlines on May 6th

(our return date).

Croatian Airlines representatives were very rude and claimed it was

our fault for buying these tickets. We know this is not the case. In

Sarajevo Croatian Airlines has been advertising itself misleadingly to

customers as providing direct international flights from Zagreb, their

capital city, to other destinations, including Rome. They were by

contract obligated to fly me and my wife to Rome without any domestic

stopovers, and should have done so through their Star Alliance

connections by rerouting us over Munich or Vienna. We have kept the

original tickets, and boarding passes as evidence, along with the

baggage tags which clearly indicate that Croatian Airways is trying to

appear as if it is offering direct international flights from Zagreb

in order to attract customers. For people like myself this is no

serious issue, except that I was not permitted to use the Star

Alliance lounge in the international waiting area. However, for my

wife, it means creating a lot of unexpected hassle, expense and

humiliation, and our vacation in Italy has been sorely compromised by

our dealings with the Croatian embassy in Rome, among other things.

We were passengers on OU 341 Sarajevo-Zagreb, OU 380 Zagreb-Rome via

Split on April 27th, 2007.

Sincerely,

Steffen Cambon and Hanna Adeyema

Mjedenica 50,

71000 Sarajevo

Bosnia and Herzegovina