We had some Etihad miles expiring a few months ago (all from a crazy cheap trip to South Africa in April 2015), so we decided to book four inner-Europe flights each on Air Serbia with our expiring miles.
This hop from Stuttgart to Belgrade was our first redemption. We had been staying out by the Stuttgart Airport for a few days, so we took the 8am Star Inn Hotel Stuttgart Airport-Messe shuttle to the airport for our 9:45am flight.
We checked into our flight and dropped our checked bags at the Air Serbia desk. Then, JT sat and wrote up a deal alert post and Katie returned the glass bottles we had bought from the airport grocery store back to the store. With the refund and a little cash she bought JT a coffee drink.
We went to security around 9am. There was a long line, and we had the misfortune of picking the slowest line. We figured people were just being stupid, but it seemed that this line was just much more conservative than the others. Although the signs said to only remove laptops and liquids, after going through the line we were told that we had to remove all of our electronics and have everything scanned again. JT was even told that his backpack was ‘too full’ and they removed some extra items randomly for extra scanning. It was a pretty ridiculous process.
"Sir, your backpack is too full" -German security agent before unpacking my backpack into three bins for re-scanning. Well, it's my office!
— JT Genter (@JTGenter) October 7, 2017
The process also took a long time. We hustled though the airport to an immigration desk with just one agent but luckily no line. We quickly exited the Schengen Area and went to our nearby gate. We ended up being two of the last four passengers to board.
24th airline of 2017: @airserbia! STT-BEG JU341 A319 (YU-APD) 30" pitch with slimline seats 😬 At least we got an empty middle seat! pic.twitter.com/QxbOyXWJUT
— JT Genter (@JTGenter) October 7, 2017
The flight was just one hour and 40 minutes. The A319-100 plane was about 70% full, but we had an empty seat in our row.
A quick drink service – including complementary wines – and a cold half sandwich were served.
Once we landed in Belgrade, we noticed various stored/abandoned aircraft. We parked at a bus gate.
Being bused to the terminal ended up being a good thing, since we effectively got a bus tour around the airport.
Multiple flights had just arrived when we reached immigration. Many foreign visitors have to buy a visa on arrival, but US citizens don’t need a visa. Regardless, we were in a line with all of the foreign visitors – but it moved relatively quickly.
Once past immigration, we gathered our bags from baggage claim.
Once we had our bags, we withdrew some cash from an ATM and headed to the departures level to catch a bus into the city. We had planned to take the 72 bus (150RSD/person onboard), but an A1 bus (300RSD/person) stopped and the driver convinced us to ride his bus instead.