TRIP REPORT: Air Serbia and ITA from Serbia to Italy
Hello everyone and welcome to this report of my experience flying from Belgrade to Florence via Rome, on Air Serbia and ITA Airways respectively.
The flights were taken at the very end of July. To once again confirm what is basically public knowledge at this point, Air Serbia codeshares are horrible - for my flight at least, booking certain dates wasn’t possible, even if I tried booking two separate tickets, and the airfare wasn’t particularly cheap either. Airport expansion continues on, here is a general overview.
Since my flight was on a Saturday, it was an early morning one. I arrived at the airport around 4am, for the 6:45am departure. T1 check-in was jam-packed, and Air Serbia’s T2 check-in wasn’t much better. The airport screens indicated one set of check in desks for Rome, but when I got there, I found out check-in was being done at a whole other set of desks, and a nearby Air Serbia ground agent told me where to go. The check-in experience itself was a bit out of the ordinary - likely since a flight to Moscow was also checking in. I got asked a multitude of questions such as “Did you pack your own bags?”, “Are the things in your luggage only your own?”, etc... Upon finishing up, I headed upstairs, cleared security in less than 5 minutes, and headed for the gates. Once again, the only open café at this hour was Kapital, which is always full.
I won’t talk much about the airport inside, as not much has changed in the 2 weeks since I last travelled (if you are interested in a more detailed take on the airport renovations check out my previous report to Antalya). One thing which I found this time around was the 95 Years of Air Serbia / 60 Years of Belgrade Airport “exhibit”, if you can even call it that, which was recently transferred to the airport. It is located around Gates 7 and 8. During the walk I even got a nice view of Air Serbia’s wet lease fleet.
I soon got to Gate 14 where I waited for boarding to start, it was slightly late. We quickly boarded the newest member of the A319 fleet, YU-APN. Nothing much has changed within the cabin. Legroom is actually pretty fine considering I’m over 190cm. An A319 soon pulled into the gate next to us as we waited for doors to close. Once they did, I noticed the flight was only 50-60% full. The pilot also informed us we would be delayed by another 40ish minutes due to traffic in Rome and ATC delays. I even got to see the Hainan A333 when it landed!
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After some time, we started taxiing. Basically, everyone was delayed at this point. BEG ATC decided, for some reason, to have planes alternate runway use – first plane in line took off from RWY30, next in line from RWY12, and then my plane from 30 etc.. I have no idea why they did this since all planes then had to wait for a few minutes to depart. I’ll leave you with some of the views on takeoff.
Inflight service at Air Serbia really makes you think if they are joking with you, to test how cheap they can go. We got a small bottle of water (VodaVoda now), and two “Noblica’s” – just to clarify I actually mean only two separate cookies, not two packets. Buy on Board is laughably expensive, and Elevate is always there, and featured some articles on the new Air Serbia routes. One thing I must note is that the plane was literally freezing cold the entire time, I recommend carrying a hoodie or something similar when flying.
I was half asleep the rest of the flight, and soon we were approaching Rome. It was unusually bumpy for FCO, but the landing was so smooth you could barely even feel it, and we taxied towards a bus gate. During the ride to the terminal, I got my first live glimpse of the new ITA livery, and I must say pictures do not do it justice, as it looks great when you see it up close!
Rome’s Fiumicino Airport has had an interesting few years - in 2015 a massive fire broke out which basically burned an entire concourse to the ground. FCO was already due a renovation, so a project to revamp the entire terminal was started. It resulted in the E concourse and gates (used for non-Schengen flights), and the more recently opened, brand new, A concourse. According to ACI Europe, FCO has won best European airport multiple times in the last few years, and I’d say its deserved. Below you can see a pic of the E concourse, and then a few others of the new A concourse. There was even a small art exhibit placed within one of the connecting parts.
Upon getting to my gate, I got a good opportunity to compare the “newest” Alitalia livery, and current ITA livery on the same plane. Of the two, mine ended up being the Alitalia one, EI-IMC to be exact. The flight was delayed on its arrival from Nice. I got an email and message from ITA confirming the delay which was nice since some airlines (like Air Serbia) leave you to guess.
The plane still sports the old Alitalia interior with some small touches to indicate it’s operated by ITA now. Legroom was bad. The flight did not last long and we got some drinks. It was quite bumpy, but little did I know it was about to get a whole lot bumpier!
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Florence’s Peretola Airport is surrounded by hills and mountains, and to add to that, it has a runway which is just about 5.000ft long - i.e. just barely enough to fit an A319. Consequently, this was likely the roughest approach I ever experienced, and also the hardest landing. It was stormy though so that likely contributed! On the ground there were apparently some technical issues, so we had to wait a bit to de-plane. We then took a short walk to the terminal, where we were once again delayed in getting our bags. The only complaint I have is that the baggage hall gets a bit cramped if you have 4 or 5 planes de-board at similar times.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! I’ll hopefully be able to write the return report soon!
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