Options, Alterations, Weather

Weather & Alterations

Our tours are carefully designed to enjoy the sights we are visiting and at the same time enjoy the flying between the locations. We will try to follow the planned route; however, the weather is unfortunately not under our control and flight safety is paramount in the decisions to fly and where to fly. The weather may impact our tour planning to a significant extent. That is why we have experienced pilot guides and resorceful tour directors that will adapt the itinerary to actual conditions and also to the wishes of the group. For many possible situations, we have plans what to do if a certain leg can not be flown due to the weather.

The weather in and around the Alps (especially on the east side) is quite local – you can have heavy rain and clear skies just 10 km apart; the weather in the Alps may change quickly and forecasts often cannot predict the exact time a weather formation will need to cross the Alps.

In case of locally bad weather conditions, we will adapt the route in such a manner that we can jump back to the plan if/when the weather conditions improve. Here are some examples for the Adria Alps & the Glorious Empire:

• Day 1: the prologue day has many options to fly different routes and we will select the most favourable one considering the weather. One of the more frequent problems in Portorož may be strong wind; this wind is usually limited to the coastal area, so we may, instead of returning to Portorož, select a different airport in a more continental area to avoid landings in heavy gusting wind. Of course, the prologue day flying may be completely skipped with no impact to the rest of the route; in such cases we will organize a ground trip to one of the attractive locations close to Portorož.
• Day 2: flying through the narrow Alpine valleys may be impossible, while flying at much lower altitudes to the east is frequently possible; we may route the leg much more to the east and reach Ljubljana airport (lighted runway, ILS) instead of Bled. In this case, we will make a visit to the city of Ljubljana instead of rafting on the Soča river and then use ground transfer to Bled. If Ljubljana were also in IMC conditions, we would fly to Maribor and have a wine tasting day in Slovenian Styria.
• Day 3: the route on the eastern edge of Alps can naturally be flown at many different heights; except in very rare situations, it is almost always possible to fly from Ljubljana to Vienna, you just have to go more to the east if the cloud base happens to be low. In some cases, the Vienna area is foggy - in such a case we would land at one of the airports at a slightly higher altitude but still in the 50 mile radius from Vienna (there are dozens of such airports) and have a bit longer ground transfers.
• Day 4: In case of bad weather forecasts, we will adapt where we will have a no-fly day. Instead of stopping for two nights in Vienna, we may spend two nights in Budapest. In such cases, we can of course organize ground transportation for any fixed events that you might have arranged (like the Opera evening in Vienna).
• Day 5: Budapest has many useful airports. We will use the large lighted and ILS equipped one under less favourable weather conditions. There is also an airport that is 500 ft higher and is usually above fog-level, but still very close to the city.
• Day 6: The route from Budapest to Sarajevo is quite exposed to the weather: we have a long leg in the Panonnian plane followed by a mountainous leg through Bosnia; the weather in these parts is frequently considerably different. We have several alternatives to land on the route. In case Sarajevo were to be IMC, we would instead fly to Belgrade, Serbia, visit the local attractions there and then proceed to Dubrovnik.
• Day 7: The route from Sarajevo to the coast cannot avoid some hilly terrain (this is even more the case if we were to stay in Belgrade and proceed to the coast). We can fly along the valleys to avoid any high altitudes, but the risk is always there. There are, however, alternative airports that we may use. Another quite frequent obstacle would be very heavy wind on the coast. Dubrovnik is not the best airport in such conditions (in fact, it is demanding in any windy conditions), so we will select another airport on the coast, such as Brač or Split and provide ground transportation to Dubrovnik (some 200 km). In case of prolonged heavy northeastern coastal wind we can even proceed to the Italian coast, where conditions in such a case are much better.

Optional routes

Vienna - Prague

Vienna - Bratislava

Dubrovnik - Mostar

Dubrovnik - Bari