Flight review: Air Serbia A320 Economy Class
Flight#: JU581
From: Barcelona (BCN)
To: Belgrade (BEG)
Flight time: 2h 30min
Aircraft: Airbus A320-200
This is the second part of a two-flight review that I’ve done of Air Serbia’s narrow body cabin product. This one refers to the economy class experience. For the Air Serbia business class flight report, click here.
This flight was courtesy or Air Serbia. Opinion are my own.
Passenger experience, food and amenities
Air Serbia is still, nominally, an Etihad partner, but the Abu Dhabi carrier has been reducing its equity stake and, I have been informed, is no longer involved in the day to day management of Air Serbia, which has been pursuing other alliances
As it turned out, Barcelona is not among the airports enabled for Air Serbia online checkin, so my pre-flight experience started the old school way, at the airport, checking in at the counter.
Air Serbia operates with a two-class cabin (although in narrow body aircraft the business class cabin tends to be relatively small and based on demand) and there are three different economy class fares.
When it comes to the “hard product”, all three economy fares are pretty similar and the differences are in the intangibles. For example, the basic one includes hand luggage and a snack and only differs from the standard in the accrual of frequent flyer miles.
There is also a more premium economy class fare that has some additional flexibility advantages, like the ability to change or cancel reservations and priority boarding. It must be said that the differences in price appear to be small as well, around €20 between each (at least in the flights I checked).
The priority seats
The cabin features Recaro slim seats, with some of them designated as priority, which you can get by paying a bit extra. I was on a standard seat and I must say the seat pitch (which I think is 30”) felt pretty ok.
I was also positively surprised how spotlessly clean and tidy the cabin looked, particularly after a not-so positive recent experience on other carriers.
The seats have both an upper pocket for reading materials and the perfectly packed magazines (yes, it makes a difference!) and a small lower seatback pouch.
By the way, there is no power outlet onboard, so better board the plane with personal devices charged.
Air Serbia’s standard economy seats
The passenger’s view!
Here’s another interesting twist: while economy class includes “a snack”, I was expecting perhaps a cookie or a candy. In fact, there is a whole à-la-carte menu in each passenger’s seat pouch (with prices in Serbian dinars and €), so I was positively surprised as well that Air Serbia distributes a meal box.
True, the contents are pretty basic (a sandwich, a bottle of water and a muffin), but this is way more than many European airlines give away to their economy class passengers nowadays.
I am not sure how it works financially for Air Serbia, I guess demand for food ancillaries decreases quite significantly when you offer at least “something”, since the contents of the complimentary meal box are pretty adequate to assuage hunger or thirst during a 2-hour flight, but it is an entirely different matter beyond the scope of this flight review!
There is no IFE onboard, but no shortage of reading materials!
In the seatback upper pouch I could find “Elevate”, which is Air Serbia’s inflight magazine (with text in Serbian and English), which was actually of pretty good quality, as well as a magazine all about Serbian specialty food and wine. A bit random, but found it quite interesting to get to learn a bit more about the country I was about to visit (and offering a view of what to find outside the capital, which is what most visitors usually see only!)
Our take
Air Serbia’s economy class, while not luxurious in any way, already offers a bit more than what you find on most European airlines economy classes: cleanliness, a decent seat pitch and something to eat and drink.