A royal dumping
I wasn't here during the announcement....but as far as i can see no one has batted an eye on British Airways canceling its direct flight from London Gatwick to Sarajevo. I don't think too many of us realize what this means. Quite frankly, this is a serious blow on all fronts. Let me tell you why.
London is, simply put, the most important city in Europe. It is the largest and wealthiest. It's combined tourism activity shuns any other major European city, even Amsterdam and Paris. The Brits travel more than any other Europeans do, averaging 5 trips per year. The pound is traditionally strong and the Brits aren't shy to spend them when on holiday. So from the tourism aspect - this is an absolute catastrophe that we've never even bothered to sit and think what this link to London means.
Culturally it's yet another little slap in the face to friends of Bosnia. I'm not sure how many of you know it, but a large bulk of the anti-war movements and a tremendous amount of grassroots politicking for BiH came from this city. There is a impressive number of great friends to this city, both famous and infamous. We've never really given them much credit for it....but believe me, they're there. Noel Malcolm, Ed Vuliamy, Mike Leigh just to name a few. But there are so many more. The Bosnian Institute was based out of London with brilliant minds and souls pulling, lobbying, educating, talking about Bosnia since the war that brought us to our knees. They have done a tremendous amount to raise awareness of Bosnia.
It's true that BA canceled 16 flights. High oil prices and low off season traffic certainly attributed to their decision. But Tirana, Albania has managed to keep BA on. They manage to fill three planes per week. We could barely manage two. Why? Well, for one, the Albanians understand how important it is to move out of isolation. They need and must be connected to major European currents to inch themselves out of the Balkan Blues. Secondly, they started to develop a strategy around that very flight. Logically, if one has three direct flights weekly, then perhaps we should concentrate on that market. What we have done over the past 8 years is focus on Germany, spending millions on tourism fairs at Berlin, whereas the Germans have shown very little interest in Bosnia as a tourism destination - despite the statistics, which signify a lot more transit traffic heading to Croatia than anything else.
I was thrilled when BA decided to add Sarajevo to its itinerary. I thought, finally, that we would open up now that we, for the first time, were directly connected to a major European city. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Madrid had never made that move. London did. And we fucked it up...royally.
The city of London has done great things for this country. Although we do not bare the entire blame of this misfortune, we certainly are guilty of having our heads in the sand. We are in no sense of the word pro-active, we only react to things...and allow that to create our destiny.
It may seem like no big deal....but as politically, culturally, and geographically isolated as we have been throughout our history this was a key step in opening up. In fine Bosnian fashion, we have managed to close yet another door that has been opened to us. Why are we such gluttons.
I will be writing a letter to the ministry of foreign affairs to see if he would write a diplomatic letter to the CEO of BA asking them to consider postponing the flight and perhaps continue again next tourism season. My guess would be though is that he has no idea that BA has canceled its flight...nor does he care. But i'll try anyway.
