Solo in Business Class All the way from Athens to JFK via Belgrade on Air Serbia Business Class

The return flights went well, and there were new discoveries, along with more positive notes about Air Serbia business class. The F/As remained great and some of the male F/As are really good-looking. Since these Eastern European countries are not too LGBT-friendly, I have to look away. But it is interesting that on both regional flights, the male F/A handles all the pre-takeoff rituals, as well as taking beverage and meal orders, and then the female F/A takes over the service, as the male F/A went to help out in the economy cabin. Anyway, on the long haul segment, I discover that Air Serbia actually offers a turndown service with pajamas and slippers on request. Not sure what happened on the outbound flight, but since it was the first flight, there must be some slips. Here is the full report:

June 28, 2016; Tuesday
JU 517 ATH-BEG Lv0500 Arr0540 Airbus A319-100 YU-APF


The only positive scheduling note is that this Athens to Belgrade flight fits perfectly onto the BEG-JFK flight, but the 5am departure is brutal. For some reasons, Air Serbia has many 5am departures from various Eastern European cities, and I guess they all connect into its early morning bank of flights from BEG to other Western European cities.
With the 5am departure, I spent the night on the Sofitel Athens Airport, which is right across the street from the airport. On a side note, this Sofitel needs some updates soon.

Departure hall was quiet, but there were people around. Athens has a bunch of early departures, and the Air Serbia counters were fairly busy. However there was a separate business class lane, and I was checked all the way to JFK. The agent could be more enthusiastic, but it was 3am. She was efficient, polite, and wished me a good flight. All the boxes were ticked. Skyserve is Air Serbia’s agent at Athens.



Skyserve Lounge








I was here before, when I flew Egypt Air a few years ago. Nothing changed much! I was the only one in the lounge until later in the morning. I love the entire collection of Emirates’ timetables and materials lying around. The breakfast spread was limited to packaged snacks, cheese, cakes, and cereals. I also got a wifi to access the Athens Airport’s Premium wifi, which works very well. That’s all I need.

Prayer’s Room – interesting but not surprising



JU 517 was the only non-EU flight operating this morning, and it was fairly quiet. Our flight was obviously not too heavily loaded. The inbound aircraft came in a bit late, but with a light load, we were able to remain on time.

Air Serbia video was playing at the TV screen near the gate.


Seat 2A


Boarding began at 4:45am and I waited till the last before boarding, while reading news on my phone.

As usual two F/As were greeting us on the entrance. The male F/A was super hot - sorry I have to add that. He reminds me of a handsomer version of James Blunt. It was hard not to look away during the safety demo LOL.

Anyway, I was offered the usual pre-takeoff beverage, hot towel on a tray, printed menu, and newspapers and magazines, despite that most of them are in Serbian. Since I was the only one in business class, things went really efficient. The male F/A even asked me a few times if I wanted something to drink before takeoff.


Door was closed on time at 5am and we pushed back three minutes later. We had a really long taxi towards R/W3L, and Aegean Airlines A320 was following us. We took off at 5:15am for the 75 minutes flight to Belgrade at 36,000ft.

The service was pretty familiar and was definitely extravagant in European standard.

Warmed nuts again with my choice of beverage



Here is the menu:
Breakfast
Starters
Seasonal Fresh Fruit
Natural Yogurt

Mains
*Serbian Cheese pie (gibanica) served with broccoli, tomato and turkey sausage
Or
Scrambled eggs with asparagus, French toast, chicken sausage and Béarnaise sauce

Breakfast tray – I chose the Serbian cheese and spinach pie, which was delicious. The side dishes were different from those listed in the menus – Instead of broccoli potato is served.







A nice cup of tea and another hot towel after the tray was collected.


Sunrise


I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the business class cabin – I think this set looks better. I use the OLLO fish lens clip to take some of the pictures.









Seat in recline with legrest raised – not sure if the leg rest was this useful. The seat is fairly comfortable for these short flights, but not sure if I will like them on those longer flights to Abu Dhabi. There is no power outlet and the seat pitch is around 37 inches. The leg rest is not that particularly useful too. There is no entertainment, but iPads are offered on flights above 90 minutes in business class.




There was a bit more chops, as we got closer to Belgrade, and descent soon began at 6:05am.




We landed on R/W30 at 5:30am, and parked at gate A3 three minutes later. There was an agent holding a JU 500 sign. The agent reminded me that I needed to stop by the transit desk.





I guess Air Serbia’s agents outside of Belgrade does not have the ability to enter all these additional information for US bound flights yet. Since it was early in the morning, there was no wait. The agent kindly pointed me towards the Premium lounge. I have not much to add in this front, but the agents at the Premium lounge were friendly as usual. Air Serbia is sort of like a more personalized and boutique version of Etihad Airlines.