TRIP REPORT
Five days in since Air Serbia launched its flights between Belgrade and Budapest, I flew on JU155, the evening service from Budapest to Belgrade. It was a busy Friday evening at Budapest Airport with check-in for Belgrade starting around two hours before departure.
I checked the inbound flight from Belgrade and saw that it departed right on time. Boarding started around 30 minutes before scheduled departure time. An ATR72-600 was being used so we boarded a bus to be taken to the plane. I don’t know the exact load factor on this flight, but I would say it was around 50% full. There were a handful of Asian passengers, a group of younger Hungarians, and the remainder seemed to be people from Serbia.
The crew was extremely polite and consisted of an older female purser and another younger male cabin crew member. Boarding was quickly completed as all the passengers were on the bus that took us to the plane. The aircraft itself, YU-ALZ, was in very good shape and was spotless. The pilot came over the PA to introduce himself and give us some basic flight information and shortly after we pushed back, had a short taxi and were airborne right on the scheduled time. We had some nice blue mood lighting upon departure in the cabin.
Flight time today was just 45 minutes. After we took off, the crew distributed biscuits and water and shortly after offered products from the Elevate bar although there were no takers. The pilot came over the PA to give us some more information about the flight when we reached our cruising altitude and shortly after we began our descent into Belgrade.
We landed ahead of schedule, which was great as we avoided the wave of Air Serbia arrivals from Europe, at which time one can expect long lines at passport control if you get stuck in between a few flights. We parked at gate C5 and were bussed to the terminal. I was the first one off the bus, so passport control was deserted. The whole process took less than 10 minutes (the longest part was walking from the drop off point at the terminal building to passport control). I was surprised to see that bags were already on the carousel. Work on the new baggage area also seems to be nearly completed as I managed to catch a glimpse in between the covers.
A good flight with everything on time and certainly beats driving in my opinion. Hope this new route works out for them.
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Thanks so much! What is the current (final?) policy at Belgrade airport for arrivals to the terminal by apron buses? Where are passengers dropped off to reach the arrivals level?
ReplyDeleteIn front of stairs from which you go up 2 levels
DeleteHope that will be changed after all the work is done. Otherwise going from the ground floor to the second, circle the airport to get back to the starting position at ground level. Not see much sense.
DeleteNice report!
ReplyDeleteTnx for the report and all the pics.
ReplyDeleteNice report, thank you.
ReplyDeleteAirport was deserted because that day JU operations had a complete meltdown so everything was late by at least one hour. I told that ATR broke down and created a whole mess.
None of the JU flights from Europe arrive before 10pm. And stop talking nonsense, a quick check on flight radar shows that only 4 flights were delayed and it happened because there was a technical issue with one of the Romanian wet leased planes.
DeleteExactly so you agree with me that their fleet unreliability caused chaos. Poor people going to Bucharest departed after 02.00.
DeleteNot good
Today's Budapest is moved to 15.00 because more planes broke down. Hopefully Marek reacts ASAP
DeleteThat is a very usual problem with short term leases.
DeleteMeanwhile YU-APD also broke down
DeleteYU-APD is currently on a flight to VLC.
DeleteYes it was supposed to fly to TGD but it didn't. They fixed it before Valencia.
DeleteLF is not bad considering that there were two flights that day.
ReplyDelete50% for such hard route is quite okay.
DeleteAgreed!
DeleteThanks for the beautiful report
ReplyDeleteRuta će sigurno biti uspešna. Već sledeće nedelje gotovo da nema leta ispod 80e a na nekim letovima cena po smeru je preko 100e, što je za Mart mesec odlično.
ReplyDeleteTo ne mora nista da znaci. Ja sam leteo u februaru za Solun karta je bila blizu 200 e, a na letu 30-ak putnika na A319.
DeleteMožda je povratni let bio pun pa Vam je karta bila 200e. Što se BUD tiče, početne cene karata na svim letovima su bile oko 40e. Ako su sada cene duplo skuplje to sigurno znači da prodaja ide dobro. Porediti letove na ATR-u i A319 i nema baš nekog smisla.
DeleteU pravu ste nema smisla, porediti, povratni let je bio na ATR sa 23 putnika. Moj cilj je bio da kazem da na letovima gde JU nema konkurenciju, cena karata ne moze biti osnov za utvrdjivanje LF na letu, na nacin na koji Vi to radite.
DeleteAnonymous11:35
DeleteJU nema konkurenciju na liniji ka BUD samo kada je u pitanju avionski saobracaj, do Budimpeste mozete i kombijem za 4 do 5h da stignete za manje novca, sto je skoro isto vreme kao da idete avionom kada saberete vreme od i do aerodroma, kao i samo vreme na aerodromima....JU i te kako ima konkurenciju na zemlji, tako da 50% LF za rutu koja leti dva puta dnevno do glavnog grada do kog se najbrze stize iz Beograda je odlican pocetak.
Висина цене дефинитивно зависи од попуњености. Наравно, то вероватно варира од линије до линије у зависности од разних околности. Примера ради, што се Ларнаке тиче, чим цена на А319 достигне 21.000 у једном смеру то значи да смо догурали до 100 путника по лету.
DeleteАко цене карата ка Будимпешти расту онда значи да се и попуњеност побољшава.
Овог пута ЈУ има много већу мрежу те неупоредиво више нуди својим потенцијалним путницима или гостима што би наша браћа из пустиње рекли.
Ma jasno Nemjee. Popunjenost kabine diktira cenu karata. Bilo bi lepo znati koliki je LF na linijama do BUD danas kada su najjeftinije karte u oba smera oko 100e. Verovatno je preko 70,%.
DeleteKo se često vozi kombijem za Budimpeštu zna da to ume biti mnogo duže od 4-5 h.
DeleteKombi i avion jednostavno ne bih ni poredio, jer kad poletiš znaš da ćeš stići u okvirno 45-50 min. Sa kombijem i drugim vidovima prevoza je to lutrija. Ko će gde izaći ili ući, koliko će granična policija biti voljna da radi i da li će druga strana granice biti voljna da otvori više od 1-2 kućice.
Ko se vozio više puta zna o čemu pričam. Razlika u ceni između kombija i leta avionom je toliko mala da ne bih uopšte imao protiv ni da platim duplo, samo da ne prolazim kroz takva iskustva.
+1
DeleteAnon 16:39 100000% agree
DeleteSlazem se sa tvojom konstatacijom, srvis od "vrata do vrata" je samo na papiru, posebno kad se ceka da neko sleti, pa se ceka. Da ne pominjem, nekultiru vozaca.
DeleteNice report. So the arrival passport control is still the old one, narrow and small? I can't believe they still couldn't change this!?!?!
ReplyDeleteSuch a nice report, am coming to Budapest next month and booked trip with Air Serbia to Belgrade for less than 85 euros return, reasonable. I think this route will be successful. Glad to see Air Serbia doing well.
ReplyDeleteHave a nice trip!
DeleteWhat was the load factor on a BEG-BUD segment?
ReplyDeleteI do not think its possible to see that when you are boarding via bus
DeleteWoow, I didn't expect trip report from the new route to come so soon :) I hope this route will eventually become successful for them. Once the railway is finished, I suppose this route will be only for transfers.
ReplyDeleteThey already stated that high speed train is taken into consideration and they are planing this as a feeder route from the beginning.
DeleteI like the blue lighting :)
ReplyDeleteIt's funny to me that you, for such a short flight, got both water and cookie, meanwhile last week for the flight Niš - Cologne we got only water.
ReplyDeleteOnly Eau de Cologne.
DeleteI love these short but concise reports with lots of photos
ReplyDeleteNice report. If the RT price stays below 100 euros Air Serbia should do well.
ReplyDelete