Belgrade Airport

Newly remodeled international terminal is functional and being used for the past 3 weeks and it looks great. It is clean spacious and has modern monitors placed above check in lines and elsewhere. There are quite a few souvenir shops past the passport control to choose from with some interesting Serbian souvenirs. Prices are higher than in the city but affordable for tourists and that is to be expected of any airport shop. Everyone I dealt with was professional and I am glad to see the improvements. The air plane museum is a worthwhile stop only about 500m from the airport and while the building is showing its age it does house some rare planes to be seen.

Travelled through late summer; apparently under construction - but did not see any kind of activity. Picked the wrong taxi driver to city - bad guy of course despite wearing an official looking badge. One week later I arrived from Montenegro and went straight to the curb outside and picked a taxi which was unloading passengers - no problem (just make sure they blue sign on the roof with a 4 digit no). Flying out of Belgrade the change office quoted a very bad price for the rest of my dinars so I chose to keep them. Few options for shopping duty free - saw several closed of shops some still displaying articles!

The international terminal is still in construction so the old domestic terminal is used. Everything went smooth both arrival and departure. No hassle. Extra plus for sufficient smokers sections. Tax free shops with very few articles.

I was in Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport 15 and 18th of Oct. I saw no improvement made highlighted by the others in the report. Sad looking airport poor service at the business lounge custom officials that try hard to get "something" out of you. The only highlight is the air museum 500m away from the airport. If you are a aircraft freak especially Soviet models that's will be a heaven for you. Otherwise the best thing about Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is flight out of it.

Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is currently modernising but it is reasonably good at the moment new airlines like Tunisair Snowflake and Uzbekistan Airways have opened up routes to there. It is supposed to turn into the logistic centre for the Balkans and it is the largest airport in the Balkans (ex. Athens).

So - what have happened with the update of International part of the terminal building? It is obviously still ongoing process that causes horrible feeling in this gloomy airport! Not to mention the amount of smoke inhaled in that sad-looking bar on the first floor.

Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is undergoing heavy expansion and reconstruction works which are scheduled to be finished by May 2004. Because of this the International Terminal has been closed and all passengers have been re-routed to the Domestic Terminal which was 'adapted' to handle International traffic. This was done in a less than perfect way which makes the airport look really bad. First off all the Domestic terminal was built in the early 60s and has never undergone works to 'update it'. It is much smaller than the International counterpart (built in the early 80s) which expands on three floors. Hopefully when the airport re-opens in late spring thing will go much smoother. In the meantime airport officilas should display some 'Sorry for the inconvenience' and explanation signs.

Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is a true time warp - it's like a small journey back to 1960's (behind the iron curtain!). The airport facilities are poor and not well maintained there is only one overpriced restaurant duty free shops are not well stocked (i.e. no malt whiskeys and no Marlboros!) and there is no internet connection available. If you couple this with the fact that it is one of the most disorganized airports I have ever seen in my life (only 3 check-in counters for ALL Yugoslav Airlines international flights with almost no distinction between business class and economy class check in then one can only imagine what kind of a mess it was) and with very rude staff makes it one of the worst airport experiences I ever had. If you ever travel there make sure that there is someone waiting for you because taxis available there will rip you off. Do not even think about buses because they look like they had leased them from a museum. However I must say that some things are improving and I hope that they will finally put their act together and make it comparable with other Central European airports.

Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is a small airport. From 1990 to 2000 the country was in terrible condition as well as the airport. But now it is turning in to a world airport. On level one of the airport as well as on level number two there are duty frees and shops. The ground staff is very friendly. I just hope the airport expends even more.