TRIP REPORT: KLM, Belgrade - London City via Amsterdam

TRIP REPORT

Written by Bowden Granville

Belgrade - London City (Via Amsterdam Schiphol)

December 10, 2024

Flight 1: KL1984 Belgrade - Amsterdam Schiphol

Operator: KLM CITYHOPPER

Aircraft: Embraer ERJ-190

Aircraft reg: PH-EZW (12.5years old)

STD / ATD: 12:35 /12:50

STA / ATA 15:00 /14:50

With the sad loss of BA, the weekly number of direct flights between London and Belgrade during the winter months stands at 14. Once per day by Air Serbia from Heathrow Terminal 4, and once a day by Wizz Air to Luton Airport. Its common to read discussions about the connectivity and location of various London airports with certain airports being ‘better located’ than others. I find these debates are largely subjective and depend either on where one lives, or where one needs to get to.

As I live 140km outside London in East Anglia, Luton Airport is faster for me to get to than Heathrow. Stansted would be an even better option for me, and if a certain major Irish airline would one day start flights I for one would be a loyal customer.

For me, far more important than location of the London airport is departure time. Wizz Air, an airline I use frequently (at least 20 times year) has, throughout the years, changed its flight times to Belgrade many times. Beginning in December 2024, and it seems for the entirety of 2025 Wizz Air, have scheduled their flight to Belgrade to depart Luton in the evening. Twice a week at 16:15 and five times a week at 18:55. This gives arrival times of 20:05 or 22:45. The outbound flight is therefore useful for getting to Belgrade, as it gives sufficient time to drive or take the train to Luton from elsewhere in the country, or to use the fast rail and bus connections to London. The return journey however, means landing into Luton at either 01:35, or on two days a week at the slightly more reasonable 22:55. For me, landing into Luton at these times would require an overnight stay in a hotel, which is expensive and wastes time, or a 2 hour drive during the middle of the night. There are no public transport options that work during the night to get to Cambridge or East Anglia.

Given this schedule, its means that I will probably use Wizz Air less in 2025 on the route. The Air Serbia flight JU210 into Heathrow that arrives at 12:20 will be my go-to flight for the return leg of this route. That being said, for this trip KLM were offering amazing prices in business class into London City, an airport that is extremely convenient in all aspects, including for onwards travel to the Eastern regions of the UK via Stratford station.

I left for the airport relatively early at 9:00am, as I wanted to do some reading in the airport. I’d been staying in Belvil, in Novi Beograd literally next to the Air Serbia building on Jurija Gagarina. Light rain began to fall as I walked to the bus stop for the bus 600 that connects Banovo Brdo with the airport via New Belgrade. Next to the bus stop the unfinished bus station seemed quite busy, with several people with suitcases waiting for busses.

I hope one day the authorities in Belgrade decide to upgrade the A1 ‘bus’ which is really poor experience and not the greatest first impression for new arrivals to the city. It really wouldn’t take more than minimal effort to plan a coach service linking the airport with the new bus station and points in central Belgrade. Better still – put a tender for a major international coach company come to do this. This would greatly improve the passenger experience of the airport, and it is quite beyond me why the management of the airport and the city haven’t done this. Its either incompetence or a gross lack of foresight.

The Bus 600 arrived and wasn’t that busy. The journey along the motorway takes about 25 minutes and is a useful way of reaching the airport.

I arrived at the airport about 09:30, which in retrospect was too early. The check-in desk area was extremely quiet apart from the desk for China Southern which had a long line of passengers checking for the 11:00 departure to China. The KLM desks were labelled as 219-221 so I sat down to wait - I had forgotten that they wouldn’t open till two hours before departure which was 10:35. After an hour of reading and people watching, three staff members arrived to open the desks.

By this time there was a large number of people waiting in both the lines. Once the staff opened the check in desks, the line for Sky Priority was used by economy passengers and no attempt was made to call business passengers separately. This didn’t bother me greatly, but it did mean waiting in line a good 15 minutes while passengers were checked in ahead of me.

The staff member was extremely polite and took my suitcase and handed me one boarding pass that had both my flight to Schiphol and to London City on.

There was no line at all for the priority passport control, and whilst the economy lane had a relatively long line there were a lot of policemen on duty and it looked like it wouldn’t take long there too. I find departing from Belgrade Airport can often be very fast.

Security took a couple of minutes and was well staffed.

The new and expanded Duty Free area and area with cafes and the Rakia bar is a great improvement. Whilst the airport is certainly not a beauty, nor is it particularly well designed, it is a great improvement. One of my favourite things is just watching aircraft movements out of the window, and I decided to do this rather than visit the business lounge which is not particularly nice, and I didn’t want to eat or drink anything. There was a long line for the business lounge, so I didn’t even bother to go in this time.

I found myself a seat by the window at Gate A3 and watched as the KLM Cityhopper Embraer arrived and deboarding commenced. Outside I could see work was underway on the taxiway by gates A1 and A2. At 12:15 boarding was called a large number of passengers rushed towards the members of staff checking tickets. Whilst they did call families and those with Sky Priority to come forward, this was almost impossible due to the way passengers were standing. No real attempt was made to make a separate line. Again, this didn’t bother me, but for some people it might.

Boarding was actually very speedy once it began, and a friendly air stewardess greeted the passengers. The crew had overnighted in Belgrade, and this was their first leg of the day. I had selected seat 1F. Being at the front of the aircraft, the leg room was great, and the Embraer seat and cabin is always one of my favourite to travel on.

At the front the cabin is a storage space for keeping luggage that wouldn’t fit further back, and several passengers placed their trolley cases here. At 12:25 it was announced that boarding was complete. There were 5 passengers in Business class and as far as I could see full in economy.

The stewardess handed out 500ml bottles of water as the captain made an announcement that they were ready to go and would push back with a few minutes delay but that he expected we would land in Schiphol 20-30 minutes ahead of schedule.

After the engines were started, we taxied towards the runway in which I was able to see almost the entirety of the Air Serbia ATR fleet and the A330 ‘Expo 2027’ sitting at a remote stand.

One of the wet-leased A320s that operate for Air Serbia landed whilst we waited our turn to take off. I flew aboard one of these a few weeks later to Madrid and the flight was uneventful and pleasant.

After take-off the crew handed out menu cards. The meal was a vegetarian sweet potato salad and served with crackers. Macaroons for dessert. The food was very tasty, and the wine severed was nice too. After the meal coffee was offered in Delft inspired china cups.

Before landing, a cheese sandwich was handed out too. Quite a lot of food for a flight of two hours.

The landing into Schiphol was on one of the runways closer to the stands where Cityhopper flights depart from. Within a few minutes all passengers were on buses which made the 5 minute or so drive to the terminal. I could see lots of works on an extension to the terminal which I assume will be for Cityhopper as the jet bridges look specifically designed for Embraer sized aircraft.

Entering the terminal building it was clear that the onward flight to London City would be departing almost exactly where passengers enter the terminal. Given that I had an hour and a half till the next flight I went to have a beer at the Heineken bar.

Cityhopper flights to the UK mostly use the D6 gates located on the lower ground floor. One goes down an escalator and there are many gates and a lot of passengers. It isn’t the nicest of spaces and was very crowded given the time of day and the frequency of flights. Staff members were trying to make people move further down the space towards the gates, however many didn’t want to, given how crowded and stuffy it was.

Flight 2: KL989 Amsterdam Schiphol - London City

Operator: KLM CITYHOPPER

Aircraft: Embraer ERJ-190

Aircraft reg: PH-EZD (15.5years old)

STD / ATD: 16:30 /16:50

STA / ATA 16:35 /16:30

Down to the D6 Gates where most UK bound flights leave

At about 16:10 boarding began. On this flight I was on an economy ticket. Bus again took the passengers to the Embraer. The busses were extremely crowded and very hot, not the nicest of a experiences given the 10 minutes it took to get to the aircraft.

The crew were pleasant and within 5 minutes all passengers were seated and ready to go. The flight seemed full. Take-off was done on the Polderbaan runway, so involved a bit of a taxi, but by 16:45 was airborne. The aircraft ahead was going to Norwich, an airport around 15minutes from my house, but the price to fly there was three times that of flying into London City.

An Eastern Airways aircraft operating for KLM

A few minutes after take-off the crew handed out a snack and bottle of water. 30 minutes later South London was visible from the window as the aircraft approached central London. Landing in London city over central London is one of the great approaches in Europe and a final turn is made almost directly over the Shard building in London Bridge. The flight landed on time at 16:30 and by 16:45 I had exited the airport having collected my bag and cleared passport control.

All in all KLM provided a very good level of service and the connection and landing in City Airport is always fun. The onward connections offered from Stratford make getting home fast and comfortable.

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