TRIP REPORT: Air Serbia, Belgrade - Guangzhou

TRIP REPORT

I had the opportunity to fly on Air Serbia’s inaugural flight between Belgrade and Guangzhou. I purchased the ticket around the 10th of August, with the service launching on 30 September. Subsequently China Southern scheduled its flights on the same route. I checked the price after they did so, and they were exactly the same as Air Serbia’s at the time. I booked a one-way business class ticket, as I would be continuing my journey on a different itinerary.

Before I get into a detailed report, here are a few positives and negatives. The positives include a truly polite and attentive cabin crew who were very friendly, very presentable, and did a good job. The onboard “Ambassadors”, whose job is to make announcements in Chinese and assist Chinese speaking passengers is a great idea in my opinion and they did a very good job. Also, I found the seat itself very comfortable. The negatives, the aircraft in question that operated this service - YU-ARC - has its cabin in quite a bad shape. It is baffling to me the airline decided to schedule this aircraft on their inaugural flight when the alternative was not operating a different flight at the time. The business class cabin had several non-functioning seats, and the entertainment system does not work. While I understand that this aircraft is due for a retrofit soon and will not be used frequently now that the latest A330 has arrived, its state has deteriorated since I last flew with it a year ago from Chicago to Belgrade.

I arrived at Belgrade Airport rather early and check-in procedures had just begun. Air Serbia dedicated several check-in desks specifically for this route. Most of the passengers lining up were Chinese. Check-in was very quick, and I headed to passport control which has been temporarily reduced in size due to the installation of passport eGates (they are also being installed on arrivals). Security was pretty quick. The central plaza at Belgrade Airport is taking shape. I noticed that some of the clothing stores like Boss and Victoria’s Secret have been shut down and are being demolished (or renovated). I also noticed construction workers at some of the closed off areas which will likely be shops (interestingly all were speaking Spanish and seemed to be from South America).

Following a ceremony at the gate to mark the new route, boarding began at exactly 23:50 as was printed on the boarding pass. Two boarding bridges were used, meaning business class passengers had a dedicated gate.

Business class boarding

I was among the first passengers to board. I was aware of the product, as I have flown this aircraft before. It is an older style 2-2-2 configuration, although this type of configuration is still widely used on many A330-200s. I selected my seat online beforehand (third row window) and it seems I was lucky as my seat was fully functional. Apart from the recline options, the seat has a power port, and the entertainment screens are inside the armrest. In my opinion, the pitch is good with each set of seats having three windows. Waiting at the seat was a thick blanket, pillow, bottle of water and the menu, which was printed in English, Serbian and Chinese.

Immediately after boarding, the crew came around to offer a welcome drink – a selection between water, orange juice and prosecco. A refreshing wipe was also offered. The crew then came around to offer headphones, an amenity kit, and newspapers. PJs with slippers are also offered upon request.

Amenity kit

PJs and slippers

The cabin filled up quickly. It was not completely full on this leg. There was a mix of officials, as one would expect on the inaugural service, and paying customers. From what I could see several Chinese passengers and a few Serbian too. The doors were closed ahead of the scheduled departure time of 00:20 and a manual safety demonstration was performed by the crew. The captain made his welcome announcement but informed us that due to air traffic control restrictions we would be slightly delayed.

We took off at around 00:50. Immediately after take off, the crew member working on the side of the aisle I was sitting in came around again, introduced herself, and took the order from the menu. There was a full meal served after take off and another one some two hours prior to landing. The crew member also took drink orders and asked if we would like a turndown service after dinner. Again, I must say that the crew did a great job and she addressed each passenger by their last name.

This was the menu on tonight’s flight (and the return flight):

After take off, it became apparent that several seats in the cabin were not working. When I say not working, I mean they could not be reclined at all. Considering this was a red-eye flight, you can appreciate how this would be an issue. From what I could see around five seats in the cabin were not functioning. One of the paying customers had to move seats twice until a working seat was found. The crew were very apologetic and first tried to reset the seats from the galley twice. When that didn’t work, they called a male crew member from economy to manually take the seat apart to try to get the mechanism to work, but to no avail. Thankfully, there were just enough available seats for everyone to move. The situation worked out, but I can’t imagine what it was like on the full inbound flight, which is also a red-eye. To me, in all honestly, this isn’t ok. Especially for paying customers, and the fares are normally priced, they are not discounted or reduced.

The meal service began shortly after take off. The crew firstly gave out the ordered drinks as well as a very large ramequin of warm mixed nuts containing cashews and almonds. Afterwards the meal was brought out. The entre was “sutlijaš”, for the main I ordered the gyoza and the desert option is fruit. The meal was OK. I would say it has slightly improved on before but is still miles away from what it was like when the airline had in-house catering, both in terms of presentation and taste. The crew were very proactive in offering drink refills.

After dinner, I took out the TV screen. Everything looked ok until one attempts to press any option, from movies to the flight path map, once clicked a message pops up saying “This service not available”.

Unfortunately, this was not unique just to my seat but to every other person I saw take their TV screen out in business class. So, the entertainment system did not seem function in the entire cabin, and more likely on the entire plane. I wasn’t bothered about it too much because it was a night flight and I slept for most of it, but since this is a known issue, the airline could have found a way to address it, if it can’t be easily fixed, which I assume it can’t. For example, last year I flew with Qantas and some 3 hours before the flight got an email that the entertainment system would not work on the aircraft (in the end the flight was delayed an hour as they swapped it for a plane with working IFE). While it is annoying, I think knowing ahead of time is much less of a nuisance because it means you can download movies, bring a book or prepare another way to entertain yourself. Keep in mind, this Belgrade - Guangzhou flight was over 12 hours and there is no wi-fi on the aircraft either to pass the time.

Qantas example

Before most passengers went to sleep, we were given a certificate to mark the inaugural flight and a delicious Orasnica cookie.

As mentioned in the beginning. I found the seat to be very comfortable. I know it is not a cutting-edge new generation seat, but it reclined fully and most importantly was really well padded. Also, there is a lot of legroom when fully reclined and there is a compartment in front where you can put your shoes which I find really handy. The bedding provided by Air Serbia was also really good. Both the pillow and the blanket are very plush, and I managed to get a few hours of sleep. The crew made sure to close the window blinds so passengers wouldn’t wake up upon sunrise and they switched off the cabin lights. Without light from seat back TVs it was a very comfortable environment to fall asleep. As a comparison, I recently flew Air China’s A330-200 which had almost the same seats, with exception for the screens being at the back of each seat. Unlike the seats on Air Serbia's YU-ARC, they were very hard and uncomfortable.

The second meal was served around two hours before landing. The crew previously asked passengers if they wanted to be woken up for the meal if they were asleep. For this option, I chose the spring rolls, which came out jumbo sized. The meal was ok. Again, I do think more has to be done with the presentation but overall I think the catering is a bit better than it was before. Offering a breadbasket with several warm bread options would go a long way and I don’t think it would be too expensive for the airline’s catering provider to implement. If I remember correctly, this was provided by the airline back in the day.

Before landing we were offered a fortune cookie, which was nice touch, and were distributed entry cards for China. We touched down in Guangzhou a bit late as the flight took longer than expected. Immigration procedures were a breeze although it took a bit longer for the baggage to come out. Ironically, the business class bags tagged with “priority” came out last.

Once again, I want to highlight that I understand the aircraft in question will soon get a makeover and its utilisation will be reduced in the next few months. I am also aware that Air Serbia’s other long-haul aircraft YU-ARB offers a much better experience in terms of the hard product and that the incoming A330s will be better than YU-ARB, but in the case of YU-ARC and this flight, its biggest downfall are the nonfunctioning seats and entertainment. In terms of the soft product, I have no complaints. Some improvements can be made but overall there are no major issues. I think the airline has made some very positive developments in the last few years, but as a paying customer there are some standards that should be met and the airline should really try focusing on improving the overall onboard product. If I found myself on a longhaul business class flight and got a nonworking seat with nowhere else to move on top of non-working IFE, I would likely not choose to fly that airline again.