As you might know, trips often begin long before the actual departure day. While researching how to get from Kutaisi to Mestia, I came across mentions of local flights on very small planes. The airline’s website wasn’t very helpful, so, once again, I turned to travel blogs for more details.

There, I found two clearly divided camps: the lovers and the super haters

Many people strongly advised against using the airline, claiming they never got responses and that flights were often cancelled for no clear reason. But the others—the ones who had actually flown—were huge fans. All the incredible comments encouraged me to go further and now I was feeling that I really needed to take that flight. What started as a way to avoid a long 8-hour marshrutka ride turned into something I really wanted to experience for its own sake.

But now I needed more information. When do the flights operate? How much do tickets cost?

You’d think this would be the easy part—just check the website, right? So I googled “Vanilla Sky,” the name of the airline. After getting a bunch of Tom Cruise photos, I added “Mestia” to my search 😛 and eventually found my way to https://ticket.vanillasky.ge.

Browsing their site and Facebook page, I found some old timetables. My trip was still a couple of months away, so I had time. But several blogs warned that tickets were hard to get—the planes only seat 19 passengers—and demand is high. Worse, the website didn’t allow you to book tickets too far in advance. You could only buy flights for the current month.

So I waited. And by “waited,” I mean I checked the website almost every day to see if they had released tickets for early April.

On March 17, it finally happened! I booked as fast as I could, assuming other travelers were doing the same, worried it might sell out quickly.

For April, the flights from Kutaisi to Mestia were scheduled for Mondays and Wednesdays, and tickets cost just 50 GEL (about 17 euros), luggage included. So, I bought two tickets for Monday April 7th, and from Mestia to Tbilisi (in fact to Natakhtari) for Thursday 10th. Three nights in Mestia sounded like a great plan.

In the days leading up to the trip, I read more from the “haters” camp: complaints about cancellations even on sunny days, or when there were just a few clouds. That, combined with checking the weather forecast for Mestia—rain and snow every day—made me nervous. I didn’t even pay attention to the temperature (which said -17ºC!). That would be a challenge for later. For now, my only concern was: would the flight take off or not?

I knew cancellation was a real possibility, so I made a Plan B: take a van to Zugdidi, stay one night, then continue to Mestia. It’s possible to do the whole trip in one day, but we needed to work, so spending 8 hours in a van during the workday wasn’t an option.

I checked the airport website but couldn’t find our flight listed. Still, we called a Bolt and headed to Kutaisi International Airport. It’s a small airport with a surprising number of international flights. The domestic flights area was closed when we arrived. I asked some staff members, and they told us to just wait next to the door marked “Domestic Flights.”

A bit of good news: the flight appeared on the departures board, along with the others. Status: ON TIME. What a relief!

But… there was also a storm icon next to it. That brought back all the stories of flights being cancelled because of just a few clouds.

After waiting about one hour next to a closed door, looking into the board of flights almost every single minute, at one point the check-in for our flight started! To our surprise, we were the only passengers in the flight. After doing the check-in, they opened the domestic flights section (only for the 2 of us!) and finally went through security control. We waited for some minutes until a bus took us to the plane where the pilot and copilot where waiting for us.

During the flight there were very nice views over the mountains. At some point we couldn’t see anything due to the clouds, but the rest of the time the views were great.

After 25 minutes we landed in Mestia airport which is the smallest airport I have ever been. It is located less than 3 km from the center of the city and there was a taxi offering us to get us there.

We weren’t so lucky for the returning flight 🙁 Due to the heavy snow, that one did got cancelled. Two hours before the flight time, at aorund 10 am, I received an email informing the cancellation so we react fast and went to one of the offices in the main street. Luckily there was a driver going to Zugdidi at 10.30 so we took that van.

Is Mestia worth the visit? Short answer is yes. But if you want more details, stay tuned!

Useful information about the flight:

Website to buy the tickets: https://ticket.vanillasky.ge/

Which airport in Kutaisi? The international airport, the main one.

Luggage you can take: 15 kg, but it didn’t seem that they were being strict.