Air Serbia review by Aimee 2014-08-10

Flying on a return leg, from Belgrade to London on August 2nd 2014. At check-in with Air Serbia I was oddly asked, "is this your terminating flight?" ie, am I catching another plane after London. No, I wasn't. I didn't realise until 30mins before the flight why they asked that (because they never ask that). The plane had been delayed by 1.5hrs and we were all left sitting at the gate. Okay, not a massive problem although there is nothing to do at the gates in Belgrade as you have to pass individual gate security to get in (there is no longer security before passport control of Nikola tesla airport) Then we boarded, an hour late. The plane was not the normal type. It was super tight for leg room - I'm only 5ft 8 and my legs were touching the seat in front. There was no real business class to speak of, just more tight seating in the first 3 rows. The plane used was VERY tight. We waited another 15mins and the steward came around with water. No information given as to what the further delay was. He was speaking in Serbian but a good portion of the plane was English so we didn't know what was going on. Finally I called him and he told me there would be another 45min minimum delay. No reason given. Then the pilot came out of his cabin and loosened his tie. This is not a sight you want to see. I got up and walked to the back of the plane because now we were super heating on the tarmac as the air conditioning wasn't on. We were almost 2hrs late. Both front and back doors were open to allow some air which was good. Stewards guarded the back doors so no-one fell out! Mothers and babies were here because of the heat. The stewardess then said because we'd missed our departure time that Nikola Tesla Airport was holding us. She also added that we were boarded onto the plane because the Captain thought it'd be nicer for us to sit down. Fathomless logic. Finally we took off over 2 hours late. We were not served a hot meal but a packed lunch: small roll, small biscuit, bottle of water. I'm very disappointed in Air Serbia as they had been improving after being taken over by ETIHAD. This flight was very much what you used to get before that, when they were JAT; small planes, terrible food, very bad comms