TRIP REPORT: Belgrade - Las Vegas via Istanbul and Boston
Greetings everyone and welcome to my trip report.
Even though 2020 was disastrous for civil aviation and its fans, 2021 seems to be more promising with more and more countries dropping various restrictions and finding ways to actually live with the virus. This trend has also increased demand for air travel and that was especially felt in Belgrade over the last couple of months.
I was invited for a business meeting at a congress that was taking place in Las Vegas. Getting there became an extremely complicated matter since I am not allowed to transfer anywhere in the Schengen Zone, Switzerland included. That meant that I had two choices, first on Air Serbia and jetBlue via JFK or on Turkish Airlines via Istanbul.
Initially I wanted to go on Air Serbia but waiting times in New York were really long and their split schedule to JFK offered little flexibility. In the end I chose to fly on Turkish Airlines which wasn't so bad since I've never flown on them before and I haven't been to the new IST airport.
This was my itinerary: BEG-IST-BOS-LAS and on the way back LAS-LAX-IST-BEG.
We were off to a bad start. I arrived at the airport 2 hours and 15 minutes before take off ... just to be safe ... and I was right. Online check-in didn't work so BEG decided to process an entire A333 with just two regular check-in desks and one for business class passengers. It was a total disaster. As you can see, the line went from the desks all the way to the terminal exit and then took a turn to eventually reach terminal entrance doors past the Air Serbia office. I was in line for over an hour. When people started complaining that it was taking too long they decided to open another two check-in desks but one useless airport employee literally stood up and told her colleague she was going on a break to have coffee.
I think BEG staff is some of the worst there is, not only in our region but in the Euro-Mediterranean one for sure. They are rude, they rarely smile and a lot of them don't even speak proper English. Anyway, check-in was done and it was time to move on.
Once you pass the passport control and the duty free shop, you come to a temporary set up called Tesla's Square. Here you have some restaurants, cafes and so on and from there you can access C gates.
Here she is parked at gate C3 ready for her flight back home.
Cabin of the A333, our flight today was around 85% full. I was told that the flight to BEG was almost full.
Inserted runway
Meal wasn't actually that bad especially when you take into consideration our flight lasted 67 minutes. In the box you had a small cup of water and juice. There was no drink service.
Our plane at the gate. Taxi time was around 25 minutes.
The new airport is huge, gate to gate I took 6.600 steps. That said, I really like it. It's huge so it doesn't feel crowded, there is a lot of natural light which is nice and most importantly it's very clean even with all this traffic. There is a really nice sports bar that serves a good selection of beer. Among other things they have 0.7 L pints of Efes.
I found the TK A333 to be rather uncomfortable on these longer flights. Luckily the load factor was around 60% so that helped. Also, the IFE they have on is older and definitely a downgrade compared to what they have on their A350 and B787.
After take off the crew provides you with two kits. One has all the basic things you might need during the flight like slippers, toothbrush, eye plugs... and the other has the sanitary things like hand sanitizer, masks...
During this 10 hour flight two meals were served. Both were actually really good.
Final approach at BOS
From what I read online, BOS is still struggling to get its numbers up so many shops remain closed. Personally I found Boston airport to be one of the ugliest airports in the Western world. It just feels claustrophobic with its narrow hallways, low ceilings and generally ugly interior design. On top of that, you don't have many dining options and all shops that sell coffee were closed by 21.00. This was odd as there were quite a few flights after so parts of the airport were still busy.
Our gate for tonight.
B6 has a tv screen in each seat and offers a wide selection of films, tv shows and even live tv. Personally I was exhausted from all the flying so I spent most of the flight sleeping.
Our 05 hour and 45 minute flight tonight was operated by this 3 year old A321. Load factor was around 75%. After take off the crew went around offering a selection of free snacks followed by a drinks service.
I found jetBlue to be a fantastic airline in many different ways. Their crew is friendly and they look tidy and clean, their planes are new and shiny and the legroom was more than generous. I think JU is lucky to have them as an interline partner.
After close to 22 hours I have arrived at my final destination: Las Vegas. Our flight from Boston was very bumpy especially over Ohio and Missouri. We landed some 15 minutes ahead of schedule but we had to sit for another 20 minutes in the plane since our gate was occupied. In the end they just assigned us a new gate at a terminal that is used by Delta and United.
Flight back took me via LAX where I flew on UA's E75. Flight was full to the last seat (in both classes) and there was no service on this 36 minute flight as we spent the whole time flying through a storm. LAX-IST was onboard TK's B789 which proved to be a fantastic experience. Once again TK did not do well in terms of LF which was around 60%.
Final leg of this journey was on good old Air Serbia and its A319 registered YU-APD. Flight time was around 01.15 and the LF was around 90% with 4 passengers in business class. What I found really interesting is that it was a Tuesday and there were very few onward connections from BEG that afternoon. Most passengers on this flight were young Turks and many Arab families. Serbs made up maybe 20% of the passengers.
Hope you enjoyed reading this trip report!
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