Review of Georgian Airways flight Bologna → Tbilisi in Economy

After my graduation, I decided to gift myself a very comfortable flight from Milan to Tbilisi. But there is no direct flight ( strangely has never been). So all those years i had to choose these options :

Wizz air : Milan-Kutaisi and then Kutaisi - Tbilisi by bus (the most tiring part -by bus almost 4 hours)
Turkish Airlines : Milan-Istanbul-Tbilisi ( when you have to travel at least 4 times in a year, trust me you get fed up with these connections )
Lufthansa : Milan-Munich-Tbilisi ( very expansive all the time, still tiring plus you arrive at Tbilisi at 04:00 am. ) at least Turkish has lots of options to arrive in Tbilisi on different times.
Lot : Milan-Warsaw-Tbilisi (almost the same thing as Lufthansa, same price, but worse service, also the same timing)
Pegasus : Milan-Istanbul-Tbilisi ( listen, when the difference between pegasus and turkish is just 30 euors, service worse, still transfer, of course you will choose turkish, so pegasus was all the time out of my choice. )

but this time i wanted to fly directly from Italy to Tbilisi and pay a little bit more. The only option was Bolgona-Tbilisi direct flight which was inaugurated this march by Georgian Airways (best known for high prices and dry food). They were proud of this destination as they thought they would gather all the passenger from Milan, Florence, Rome and other cities in Bologna and then depart all them in Tbilisi.
I will try to show you how stupid idea is this nowadays. remember we are almost in 2020.

So I took the metro form my house to Milan central station and then a train from Milan to Bologna (took 2h and 15m, the high speed train was very expansive could not afford) and the a bus from Bolonga train station to airport. as you see i did lots of travelling already and i was quite tired when i arrived art the airport. plus you know, you have to have at least one hour of emergency if something happens so i was 3 hours earlier from my departure time.

The registration was the longest ever i have seen. only one girl was registering all 59 passengers. (the E190 has a capacity of 97 passangers). well you may think oh 59 passangers thats fine, but listen, its Bologna airport, old software and it took this woman almost complete h and 30 min to register all of us. it took her so long that even the crew was informed about that. this was the moment i started to complain about my decision to fly out from Bologna.



there were lots of bags everywhere. have no clue how this airline makes money with this huge bag weight + 4h flight and only 59 passengers. its a mysterious.

anyway we went through security and passport control smoothly and immediately boarded the plane.


Embraer 190 is a great airplane, wider seats then b737 or A320, bigger windows, no middle seats, fast boarding fast disembarking. but oh gosh, climate control is strange. it was all the time very hot inside the plane, all the passengers were gone red on the faces. literally. I talked with crew and they told me this is like this in general with Embraer type aircraft. i dont know… at first i thought air canada got ridd off from those planes, but who knews i dont know…





The food was fine, they had two options with chicken inside on both of them, and pasta. you know, you should not serve pasta to italians on board , because it will always be the worst they are gonna eat. but the chicken part was really tasty. they had nice magazine where the passengers can find out traditional Georgian cuisine. but it was full of lies regarding their fleet :D it was written they have b737-800 and they expect b737max and so on :D funny



the crew was very friendly and smiling all the time. they were there to help you if needed.


and finally after a smooth flight, we landed at Tbilisi airport (Tbilisi Shota Rustaveli International airport)






to Sum up:

The difference between the Georgina Airways and Wizz air was around 80 euros. But i still chose Georgian airways. I was ready to pay even more if there was direct Milan -Tbilisi flight.

its better if Georgian airways invests more in opening direct links to Rome and Milan, cuz I think i was the only one who decided to go from Milan to Bologna specially for this flight. I talked with other passengers they were from Rimini, Florence, Pisa, Bologna itself…. of course, cuz Milan-Bolgona and Rome-Bologna train ticket price is so expansive (espacially high speed) nobody will add this to the already expansive air ticket. there were cheap 40 euors round trip train tickets but the duration was 3 hour and 30m, now tell me would you choose it? me not… + bus 6 euros from Bologna station to airport. the bus was really full + huge traffic, everybody in rush due to Christmas. it was crazy. It was really too many journeys to reach the flight.and i payed so much for what?! why does Georgian airwasy think people are coming for their flight from Milan? ( dont enclude me, I literally tested this route) they dont :D :D :D all my freinds chose wizz air, thats why wizz air flies 3 time in a week form kutaisi. if Georgian airwasy enters milenese market, I think both can share the passangers, all the premium passangers will choose Georgian airways and ecenomy one wizz air. Georgian airways already has high prcies so, the passengers are ready for it. plus it will be easy to fill up E190 two times in a week at least rather than Bologna.

I am sure, if this flight was Milan-Tbilisi direct, everyone would pay more to have the air ticket ( would pay even more than i payed for my the train ticket from Milan to Bologna). there wold be more demand and more premium passangers so that they can afford Airzena high prices ( and trust me there are these kind of passangers). since only the premium passengers use Georgian Airways (due to high prices) they will not go from Milan to Bologna for this flight. never. I hope Georgian airways will understand it. even the poor passengers like me ( self irony ) will not do that, cuz then they have to pay train tickets, bus ).

Cancel the Bologna flight, and start Tbilisi-Milan and Tbilisi-Rome twice weekly E190 each, and I am sure it will succeed. This flight does not attract passangers from MIlan and Rome at all. it only serves, Florance, Bolgona, Pisa, Rimini where there is a little demand.