Originally Posted by
Curious Pax
Worked as a dispatcher at MAN in summer 1986, and handled all the Yugoslav airlines - Aviogenex Tu134s, JAT 727s, DC9s and at least 1 707; and Inex Adria DC9s and MD80s.
The crews always used to dive into the terminal to do some shopping as soon as they could on arrival. On one memorable occasion I had to put calls out for them to return urgently as I was 10 mins past STD, and had a JAT 727 full of pax, but just the most junior hosty on board! The baggage handlers needed to leave, and as it was they who moved the steps in those days by the time the crew got back they had to use the built in rear steps. Something of a walk of shame back to the cockpit for the flight deck folk!
That all sounds very familiar - the Genex hosties knew how to shop, but it wasn't difficult to cut them some slack...
Remember that at that time Yugoslavia was the second most popular holiday destination after Spain. I think with hindsight the number of different airlines trepresented the differenat nations which came out of Yugoslavia - you certainly wouldn't guess that the Inex and the Genex crews were from the same country.