Review: Air Serbia A319 Business Class

While the business class seat onboard the Air Serbia Airbus A319 is nothing special, the service and food onboard makes the Serbian flag carrier one of my favorite airlines for travel within Europe.

Air Serbia A319 Business Class Review

I already outlined the poor ground experience and great service onboard, but want to talk about Air Serbia’s onboard hard and soft product in this post.

After checking in, we headed directly to the gate. Air Serbia does not offer business class passengers priority security or lounge access in Istanbul. According to our boarding pass, boarding would commence one hour prior to flight departure, though I knew it would likely be much later.

Indeed, boarding actually started about 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure. Thankfully, we were not parked at a remote gate, though the jetbrdige felt like it was a mile long.

Air Serbia (JU) 803
Istanbul (IST) – Belgrade (BEG)
Friday, May 14
Depart: 3:40PM
Arrive: 5:10PM
Duration: 1hr, 30min
Aircraft:A319
Seat: 2C (Business Class)

Onboard, I was greeted by the lovely Aida, who took amazing care of us during the 492-mile flight to Belgrade.

Seat

Air Serbia has a flexible business class cabin that can be enlarged or reduced based up demand, the reason it ripped out its “real” business class seats in 2017.

While the seating configuration is the same 3-3 you will find in economy class, the middle seat is blocked in business class. These Recaro slimline seats are fine for short flights, but not very comfortable.

There are no plugs available and there is no wi-fi or in-flight-entertainment onboard beyond the in-flight magazine or safety card.

Meals

Menus were distributed onboard. Despite the short flight length, a mutli-couse hot meal was offered. Choices were between sea bass in dill sauce with broccoli puree and ratatouille vegetables or a cheeseburger with French Fries…that’s right.

I ordered the seas bass and my friend ordered the cheeseburger. Both were served with a starter course of crudités with yogurt and mint dip and “Moscow” cake for dessert.

So how was the cheeseburger? Well, I ended up eating half of it and must give Air Serbia credit for a decent attempt. The meat was certainly not very lean, but the bun was nicely toasted and the cheese melted. The French Fries were not crisp and needed a bit of salt, but still quite tasty. 

We’ve seen many airlines attempt hamburger or cheeseburgers, but this is the first attempt at French Fries I have seen in the air.

My sea bass did not look very appetizing, but was actually quite tasty. The dill sauce appeared missing, but broccoli puree and vegetable ratatouille complemented the fish nicely. I also really liked the crudités with yogurt sauce…a perfect appetizer.

I got my carb fix as well with a warm bread roll and the Moscow cake, which was tasty and not overly sweet.

Kudos to Air Serbia for offering such stellar meals on such short flights.

Service

Aida and Jelena did a fabulous job taking care of the four passengers in business class.

We were addressed by name throughout the flight and our glasses never went empty. We were thanked for our business and proactively offered blankets and pillows.

When the boy choked, they stood ready to help and offer emotional support to after the fact to a sobbing child and frightened mother.

> Read More: These Lovely Air Serbia Flight Attendants Were The Best Ever
> Read More: Boy Chokes In Front Of Me Eating A Business Class Cheeseburger

Lavatory

I used the lavatory to wash my hands and thought it was certainly showing its age. The floor was a bit wet (the kid used it earlier!) though it was otherwise clean.

CONCLUSION

We landed on time in Belgrade; a remarkable flight now behind us. You don’t need a long flight or comfortable seat for great service. Sometimes the shortest flights are best and that was certainly the case here. After this flight, I renew my endorsement for Air Serbia business class.