jergbsn said:
Just curious. Did any of you fly your boss or thier plane over to Germany for the World Cup. I'm not interested in who you work for, just if you went. If so, where did you go? Did you get to go to any of the games? If so, which ones? How was the World Cup experience?
JG
Considering that the games are not over yet, maybe you should say something along the lines of did you or are you flying your boss to the world cup games?
Sorry, had to kibbits. That aside, I'm in Europe right now for that very reason. No, I have not seen any of the games, not really into them either. The cost of a ticket on the street is almost a month's salary which makes me think I won't be all that interested in in the future. We'll be here through the finals in Berlin on July 9th.
The best I can describe the experience, aside from having to deal with the craziness of the fanatical fans, is a lot of work and stress dealing with getting into and out of each city, hotels that are confirmed and then, oh, my mistake, no you don't have a reservation, SLOTs into and out of various airports that have been applied for months in advance suddently disappearing and a lot of other headaches.
I use handlers and have been working on this for a year and I still have headaches to deal with. All the noise reduction regulations, making sure you have your noise certificate on your airplane and everythign else, I'd just as soon have someone else to deal with the German aviation folks. That, and if you are trying to get something from them and a game is on, forget even trying to talk to them until the next morning once they've sobered up.
My experience so far has been less than stellar. I'll be happy to get back to the States where as messed up as the FAA and TSA are, things make a lot more sense and by comparison, they actually appear to be working.