TRIP REPORT: Air Serbia, Prague - Belgrade
Date: 02.08. scheduled 20:35 - 22:30
Prague (PRG) - Belgrade (BEG)
Operated by AirSerbia
Aircraft: ATR 72-600, YU-ASA 9-10yrs old,
I will start with this trip report from the Prague city center, actually from the main train station to be more precise. That’s the place where you can catch AE (Airport Express I guess) bus which takes you directly to the Václav Havel Airport. This bus departs every 20 minutes during the day. The bus itself doesn’t have a lot of seats since it has a dedicated area for luggage. The ticket costs 100czk (around 4eur) and the ride to the airport takes around 40 minutes.
Air Serbia flies from Terminal 1 so I headed directly there. I’ve managed to take a couple of pictures of the surroundings. The terminal building inside seemed fully packed with check-in counters and it didn’t seem very big. I’ve figured out that my flight will be at one of the B gates so I headed there
After leaving the center hall of Terminal 1, there is passport control which I passed in a few minutes since there was no queue at all.
Although I excepted security control immediately after or just before passport control, it wasn’t there. After passport control, there is a relatively big duty-free shop and from there, there are different hallways towards the gates. Security check is actually in front of each gate, the same as it was in Belgrade before the reconstruction. Honestly, I thought all airports are getting rid of this approach, but in Prague, for some reason, they still have it. In comparison to Belgrade, the space between the control and gates is in most cases equipped with toilets at least.
I arrived much earlier so I had enough time to explore the airport. I noticed two less common liveries at European airports: Korean Air and IsraAir (especially the first one). It was really lovely to see a Boeing 777 and also actually see how many crew members are there only for that one flight.
In general, the airport is full of small shops (like small duty-free shops), and cafes with some bakery-like food. Toilets can also be found everywhere. Useful additions are playgrounds for kids which I haven’t taken any pictures of. Inside the terminal, there are also aero rooms which I also find quite useful in some cases, especially for transfer passengers. It was also interesting that on some of the displays the information was written not only in Czech and English but also in Chinese, Korean, and Arabic, probably when the planes from those countries arrive or depart.
Gate B15 was assigned for our flight. It meant that I had to go to the ground floor where there was a joint security control for several bus gates. Since there were no other flights planned from those gates except ours, there were almost no other passengers at security, so I passed it quite easily.
In total there were around 40 passengers 55%
Boarding started on time and was quickly completed but then we were kept inside the bus for around 15-20 minutes.
Getting into the plane was also very quick and we took off 14 minutes late.
This was my first time traveling with an Air Serbia’s ATR plane. And I can’t complain in general. Yes, it’s noisy a bit, but nothing you can’t stand for 90 minutes. I also had enough space for my legs although I’m almost 190cm tall. The only issue I found was that the armrest on my seat was broken a bit which was really uncomfortable.
The young cabin crew was really polite, however, the overall service could be much better. I wanted to drink coffee but they told me they don’t have warm water, so it wasn’t possible to make it. The beers offered were not cold and when it comes to paying, only cash was possible. As usual on Air Serbia flights, cabin crew has a lack of money with themselves making it almost impossible to return the change.
Also, the overall offer is minimal. I have the feeling YU could offer more drinks, snacks… Also, it was the 2nd of August and on the plane, there was the July version of Elevate magazine.
The flight itself was uneventful. The captain informed us 20 and 10 minutes before arrival, although he sounded so bored while speaking. The notification in English was barely understandable. I understand that they must have announcements to passengers and cabin crew, but I would rather not listen to them than to listen to bored people and also struggle to understand what they’re mumbling. We landed 8 minutes ahead of schedule. The landing was really nice, we parked at the remote position and a bus drove us to the terminal building. The entrance to the building was really disgusting. Very dirty and full of trash. Very very disappointing.
Leaving the airport was quite efficient. I waited only a couple of minutes at passport control. An update for me was 2 persons who were pointing people to the passport booths which left some feeling of efficiency and order.
In the end, I have to say that the arrivals area looks much better than before. But, I wonder why they haven’t introduced something like Kiss&Fly 5 minutes go through at the arrivals. Right now only taxis and busses are allowed to enter the zone.
To summarize the trip was really nice, however, both Air Serbia and Vinci need to improve their service a bit.
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