Everything seemed to be in order. As I was told, 60 minutes before the start of AZ906 (is somebody able to explain why Alitalia has the airline code AZ?), well, 60 minutes before departure I stood at the check-in and got served immediately. Ok, I also could have arrived as late as 10 minutes before departure, but in exchange for an early arrival I got a boarding pass with seat 1D, directly behind the pilot. On time the 2-hour trip from Torino ZTC to Milano MXP started at 5:10 pm.
Yes, I know, my readers are absolutely knowledgeable in geography and I feel them shouting: Torino is about 60 miles from Milano and then the flight is supposed to last 2 hours? You are right, AZ906 is not operated with an airplan, but with a bus. And it does not start at the airport, but Torino ZTC is the name of a shopping mall in the former FIAT factory, quite nice but totally empty on a Tuesday afternoon.
And the bus driver obviously had a special relationship with Fiat. That is to say that he seemed to have undergone training at Fiat’s daughter company, the one with red cars.
Maybe it is still normal if he passes town at 40-50 miles an hour, mostly on bus or taxi or even tram lanes wet from rain, showing a wonderful feeling for traffic, no emergency braking or panic reactions when cars want to cross the special lanes from left or right. Even when everything came to a stop he still was quite relaxed. At a roundabaout the traffic lights had failed and stubborn as the Italians are, evrybody in rush hour traffic entered it, from four directions and hardly any body was able to leave it. All blocked each other, a classical gridlock. 20-30 minutes just standing still, until ordinary people started to guide the traffic and eventually two bored policemen tried to do something slowly.
Finally the bus was free. And then the hell ride began.
For an airline of course it is expensive if many passengers miss their connecting flights and even a hotel booking becomes necessary. Therefore the would-be Formula-1-driver put his foot on the accelerator. You need to know that two thirds of the motorway from Torino to Milano consists of roadworks, with narrow lanes, bends and speed limits of 40 to 50 miles. But our pilot speeded with 60-80 mph through the construction areas, on the overtaking lane, 20 yards behind Unos and Puntos, in streaming rain of course. Taking over was prohibited for trucks, therefor it was alwys a challenge passing trucks. Especially interesting is overtaking trucks with containers, but the driver was clever, he knew that gusts of wind hid on the right and he therefore veered to the right after passing container trucks, towards the truck, not to be pressed into the construction works in the left.
Appeals by fellow passengers that it might be better to arrive safe than to reach the flight (a contradiction in terms?) were ignored. Therefore group trembling did occur. With a 20 minutes delay we arrived, I met my connection. I even had to wait 5 minutes at the gate and the the flight was 20 minutes late.
The incoming journey on Monday in contrast was quite normal. Entering the plane on schedule, in January it might happen that you sit on the strip for 90 minutes due to fog in Milano. And retrospectively it might have been not bad for my nerves to have missed the hell ride. And also skipped the alternative AZ bus ride as this would have meant 5 hours waiting. Instead I took the the shuttle bus to Milano central station and took the train. That way I only was 3 hours late. Well, getteing up at 4 in the morning this still was a bit exhausting.
