Belavia

I flew from Budapest to Kiev with a connecting flight in Minsk in September 2015.
My first flight was delayed more than for 2.5 hours. A company representative in Minsk did not tell us the reason.

I and 3 other people from the flight were given a hostel – type room with no bathroom. Then the company representative just disappear and it took us more than 1 hour to find another one who finally managed to organise some food for us (I cannot call it a dinner). NO COMPENSATION was offered for the delay.

I also must admit that both aircrafts I flew were old, noisy, and dirty.
I don’t recommend to fly with Belavia.

Fantastic crew who couldn’t be nicer or more helpful. On one leg of my return flight I finished all the tea on the plane (I like tea and it was a middle-of-the-night flight, still impressed I managed that though!) so the man serving business class gave me a couple of chocolate wafers he bought at duty free as an apology and gave me the last of the tea in a polystyrene cup for me to keep it warm so I could make it last.

Service was warm and genuine, hardly robotic like most airlines, staff were chatty. Blankets and pillows were available, food was amazing and there was so much food I couldn’t even finish it all (so he let me take the cake home, packed it for me). Meals even in economy were still full hot meals like airlines used to give. They even give boiled sweets on boarding, not many airlines still do that, nice gesture.

Outbound and return planes were a 737-300 and 737-500 LGW-MSQ-TLV, in good condition (one 737-300, their oldest, was a bit tatty but that was with age not with lack of maintenance). Flights were punctual, except the first outbound leg where departure was delayed by a tiny bit due to weather. I managed to make a connection in Minsk in just ten minutes thanks to the incredibly helpful if a bit aggressive woman at the transfer desk who physically dragged me to the connection having snatched my boarding pass to check where I was going!

Anyway, one of my favourite national airlines and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.

Expirienced pilots, nice and helpful cabin crew, good food.
I definitely recommend to fly with them!!!!
I used to fly with them 10 times!
More than happy!