Information about flight delays to Jordan. Pegas Touristik. Apparently, I shouldn't have gotten involved with this shit. Online flight board

Tatyana, Irina and Lyudmila told Cherepovetskaya Istina that they bought tours to Jordan from the Pegasus Tourist company and were supposed to fly today, May 25, at 13.30 from Sheremetyevo on a Pegasus Fly airline flight.

As happens quite often with small charter companies(there are only 8 aircraft in the Pegasus fleet), the flight was delayed. From 13.30 on May 25 it was moved to 7 am on May 26.

“This is a very sad story. After a long, many-hour wait in the departure area, they announced to us. that the flight was delayed until the morning. We did not speak with the representative of Pegasus Fly and Pegasus Tourist, since they did not appear in front of us. A representative of the Sheremetyevo airport announced about 20 minutes ago that we would be taken to a hotel,” the women said.

Cherepovka residents paid from 46,200 to 62,200 rubles for the tours. They will only check into a hotel in Jordan tomorrow, which means they have already lost one day of rest. It is unknown whether the travel company Pegasus Tourist will give money for an incompletely provided service. As a rule, this is a difficult and nervous process.

Let us add that currently large group Russians cannot fly from Jordan, since the plane from Sheremetyevo is delayed until 7 am. As a result, the Cherepovets, instead of starting to rest at approximately 18:00 on May 25, will arrive to rest only at 11:00 on the 26th. And those who were supposed to return home today will end up in Russia only on May 26 at 16.00-16.30.

In most cases I fly abroad regular flights. I prefer Aeroflot, I like their service, plus I am pleased with such a program as Aeroflot-plus. :)

But last winter, the only direct flight from Moscow to Jordan was a charter from Pegasus Fly. I had to buy tickets. This was my first trip on an airplane of this class. The flight took about six and a half hours.

Did I like it? Remained good impressions, despite some points.

Two days before the planned trip, I received an email about rescheduling the flight. During these two days the clocks changed frequently. Even after the schedule was approved, the Moscow airport announced an hour delay. Well, we couldn’t fly out normally. :)

Regarding the condition of the plane, I often read on the Internet that the transport in Pegas Fly was simply falling apart. He didn't seem like that to me. Of course, the plane was not new, judging by the inscriptions in German, it was simply written off from some flights European countries. Well, the plane was more than sixteen years old (I looked it up by its tail number on Wikipedia).

The rows are arranged according to the following pattern: 2-4-2. There was enough space between the seats, not cramped.

The pilots were very pleased. In addition to the fact that they flew the plane professionally and skillfully, they often got in touch with passengers, for example, telling them which countries we were flying through and reminding them that they should not drink alcohol.

Among the pleasant moments on the charter were:

  • free sandwiches, tea and coffee;
  • small gifts for the youngest passengers;
  • blankets

To sum it up, I was satisfied. The flight was good, we got through the turbulence, and we picked up our luggage without any problems.

The Aktobe woman, having arrived in Jordan, found herself locked up with other foreigners in the airport police. They were confused with escort girls and were not allowed into the country. In a conversation with a reporter, the girl spoke about the horrors she experienced at the airports of Amman and Sharjah.

Photo from personal archive

24-year-old Akmaral Imasheva from the Kargaly district of the Aktobe region, having bought tickets, was going to work in Jordan. But it didn’t even get to work - the visa was not approved. And then the adventures began.

“When we arrived at Amman airport, they took me into a room where the atmosphere resembled a homeless shelter, and demanded to hand over my phone and passport. I didn't understand what was going on. I cried and screamed, but no one gave an explanation,” recalls Akmaral.

No one explained to her why she was not allowed into the country. The guest from Kazakhstan found out about this only two hours later at the airport police station.

“In this room I saw girls from Ukraine and Russia and even from Almaty, I I calmed down a little that people with me are not from foreign places. There were 16 girls in one room, also from America and Pakistan.”

Photo from personal archive

The girl says that in Jordan they are not very friendly towards foreigners.

Many do not speak English, and the staff at the airport seemed incompetent to the Kazakh woman. She also remembers with horror how she was kept in a police station.

“Nobody answered anything, they only commanded “stop”, “go”, “sit here”, “hand over the phone”. Imagine a room of 20 square meters with 16 people in it. There are no windows in the room. The air conditioning is constantly on, if it’s cold, you cover yourself with dirty and smelly blankets. By evening, a policewoman throws torn mattresses in your direction and shouts: “Sleep now!” But after 15 minutes he returns and begins to walk through the girls, stepping on the mattresses.

Photo from personal archive

So she goes into another room, talking loudly on the phone and laughing. She kept turning on the light in our room to check if we were sleeping! Of course, we don’t sleep when they talk so loudly. A the lights were constantly on until the morning. In the morning, when everyone has fallen asleep, another policewoman comes in and starts rummaging through the bags of a girl who went to the restroom,” says a girl from Aktobe with a question.

Only when ambassadors from the Kazakhstan Consulate arrived, Akmaral explained why foreign girls are not allowed here.

“Jordan is a very small country, and it turns out that girls there engage in prostitution very often. Visiting girls may not be allowed in indiscriminately. Even foreign women who live there. Moreover, they will never tell you the reason. I was shocked, because according to Sharia law in Jordan there are strict laws. But even if someone is doing this, this does not mean that everyone should be treated this way,” notes our compatriot.

Photo from personal archive

The Kazakh woman also recalls that in that stuffy room in captivity she had to be a psychologist for other girls and endure a cold.

“I reassured everyone, we will remember all this, not everyone can have such a cool adventure, although at that moment it seemed to me that I would remain in this hole for the rest of my life. But the main thing for me was that they wouldn’t shoot me, and I'm alive and well. Although I soon caught a cold due to the powerful air conditioner, which worked continuously.

But even when she caught a cold, she disdained to cover herself with dirty blankets. We emerged from this swamp after the intervention of our ambassadors. I want to thank them for responding and helping in any way they could.", thanks Akmaral.

Akmaral Imasheva accepted that she was not allowed in. And the next day, March 12, in the morning, she flew to the capital of Kazakhstan in transit through Sharjah, where she was told to wait 6 hours for a flight to Astana. And then new adventures began, although not as emotional.

“When I arrived in Sharjah, they led me through the airport like a prisoner. The flight attendants handed my passport to the airport workers. It turned out that the next flight to Astana is in three days, and not in 6 hours, as they said in Amman, this is what unprofessionalism of employees means. I was completely bewildered, and I remembered how Tom Hanks in the movie “The Terminal” pushed carts back and forth, making money from it,” says Akmaral.

Photo from personal archive

The Kazakh woman’s passport was not returned, and she languished at the airport in Sharjah for about 8 hours in search of WI-FI and a power outlet.

“To get WI-FI at Sharjah airport, you need to buy something in a cafe for 30 dirhams (2,700 tenge). But WI-FI was enough for two hours, then the password was updated and again you pay 2,700, and so on - every two hours. Here the battery on the phone was running low, to charge it, you had to run to the other end of the airport and ask someone to leave it for at least five minutes, and also ask for an “adapter”! – Akmaral shares his surprise.

While she was running to the other end of the airport, I was looking for an adapter and charging my phone, the WI-FI time was running out. By the end of the day, airport staff would recognize her and say, “Oh, she’s a girl from Kazakhstan who can’t get her passport.”

“Finally, I contacted the consul in the Emirates, and he sent me a document confirming that Kazakh citizens can stay in the UAE without a visa for 30 days from March 10, 2018. It seemed that everything had been resolved, but not as quickly as we wanted. IN The airport still didn't give me my passport. Only after the consul, at my request, contacted the airport police chief, did the officers move. They helped me carry my suitcases, call the local phone, and so on,” says the Kazakh woman.

And on the very first day in Dubai, Akmaral was offered a job - a Russian-speaking employee was required. And since then she has been working at a hotel as a guest relations agent and employing people in the Emirates.

We arrived at the airport and found out that we were flying out of Cairo from different terminals (although the tickets indicated that we were both flying from the same terminal), a thought flashed through my head - the coming night would be full of surprises. The companion was returning home to Montenegro for Turkish Airlines with a transfer in Istanbul and in her post expressed her opinion in detail a reasonable "fie" about the mess with this airline’s advertised practice of providing free hotel accommodation during transit. I only read about the girl’s misadventures this morning. Meanwhile, my night also turned out to be quite difficult. Only in my case I curse the Jordanians for their cunning and stupidity. So, I'm flying from Cairo to Tel Aviv on the Royal Jordanian, transiting through Amman. There is a clear rule in this country that if you are flying in transit and spending no more than 24 hours in the country, you do not pay the ungodly 40 dinars ($60) for a Jordanian visa. It has always been this way. I flew through Amman to Asian countries many times and as a standard at the transit counter at the airport I received a piece of paper for the border guards, where it was written about transit. They put a free 24-hour stamp and I calmly went to the city for a walk for a few hours.

But last night everything was different. Knowing that I would have to spend the night and half of the next day in Amman, I booked an inexpensive hotel in the city center, not far from the Roman amphitheater, through Booking. I get off the plane (the flight from Cairo was wonderful, a brand new Boeing 787, which I flew on for the first time in my life), and go to the transit counter. And there I was taken aback, they say, a free visa is only available to those who are willing to spend the night in an expensive airport hotel. What nonsense? No amount of persuasion and negotiations help, they refuse to issue a piece of paper for the border guards regarding transit and say - if you don’t want to spend the night in our hotel, go pay 60 dollars for a visa and go wherever you want. Obviously, we are talking about a scam and the airport employees are clearly receiving some kind of kickback from the hotel for not allowing transit travelers into the city. A whole crowd of people had gathered, but they were clearly poorly versed in the laws and meekly agreed to pay for an expensive hotel imposed by the airport employees.

Jordan is generally known for small but annoying scams against tourists. I once told how in this country they fool people at the border and force them to land border take a taxi to Amman, claiming that the police forbid taking the bus. The police, of course, will not let you leave the border terminal without a taxi. Mafia.

I will say one thing - it seemed humiliating to me to fall for the petty scam of local Arabs. And I figured out how to teach the crooks a lesson and not pay them a penny!

Shawshank Redemption Jordanian Style

Remember this movie? If you haven't watched it, I recommend it. So, last night I escaped from Shawshank, that is, from the Amman airport. After the airport staff at the transit counter said that they would issue a transit paper for border guards only if I agreed to stay at their hotel, I was forced to agree. I can’t sit at the airport for 20 hours. Then they suddenly changed severity for extreme friendliness (they felt like the commission from the hotel was about to warm their pocket) and offered to pay 100 Jordanian dinars right at the transit counter. Nonsense? No, I fully admit that a hotel representative was present there, but the very fact of paying for a hotel at the airport confused me. Other passengers took out cash and paid. Friendly clerks happily accepted dollars, euros and even Egyptian pounds.

When the turn came to me, I decided to show cunning (they shouldn’t be the only one to cheat) and said that there was no cash, but there was credit card. They nodded happily that there was no problem. I note that they do not have a terminal, but only a machine for taking an impression of the card. Fabulous! I hand them my Sberbank card, which was canceled back in September (remember what happened to me in Yekaterinburg?), They ask if I need an economy room for 100 dinars, or something better? Friends, go for a walk, don't you? I want a Presidential Suite. They look in surprise and say that there is no such thing, but there is just a suite for 300 dinars (just over 400 dollars). No questions asked, let's get the luxury. They take a copy of the card and issue a voucher for the hotel. Then they happily lead the whole group through passport control, slyly waving his hand at the border guards, they say, stamp them, these have already been scammed into a hotel.

Then, having received a stamp in my passport, I safely escaped from the group, boarded a regular airport bus to the city for 3 dinars and safely went to my Amman hotel, which costs only 25 dollars. By the way, those comrades did not give the voucher; all the vouchers remained with the hotel representative, who told him to wait for him in the baggage claim area. Obviously, in the baggage claim area there was supposed to be a “handover” of us to other hotel employees, who would put us on a shuttle and take us to the hotel. And so that they record how many people this figure, through blackmail, forced to pay a lot of money for a hotel at the airport, which no one needs.

Moral issues

Will there be those who will say that I acted dishonestly and immorally towards the Jordanian state? What would you do in my place when you are being blatantly deceived? In my opinion, nothing bad happened. Since the card is cancelled, the impression from it has no validity and will be returned back to the hotel without coverage. But they didn’t have the right to impose this hotel anyway, so they didn’t lose anything.

Flight

A few words about the flight. As I already said, it was a completely new Boeing 787 Royal Airlines Jordanian, we flew for only an hour, nothing unusual happened along the way. But the flight route from Cairo to Amman was interesting; it turns out they fly over Israel. In principle, all Arab airlines fly over Israel, just as Israeli airlines fly over Arab countries. But in this case, both countries (Jordan and Egypt) have diplomatic relations with Israel and there are no prohibitions on transit flights does not exist. And yet -

My hotel in Amman was good for everything, except for one thing - the Internet is only at the reception -

But from the restaurant on the seventh floor it opens good view on old part Amman -

Just thinking out loud: when checking into hotels, have you thought about where your personal data goes? This piece of paper was lying on the floor in the hotel. I picked it up and looked with interest who else besides me was staying at this hotel. And in what room? Question for Israeli readers: do you think your citizenship would look good on this list? Well, somewhere between Iraq and Lebanon. Laughter and laughter, but the question can sometimes turn into unpleasant surprises -

 

It might be useful to read: