Since neither country is in the Schengen area, I assume that you would have to go through some kind of customs check after collecting your baggage.
Yes I do know how to use quotes. Maybe there is a problem with settings on your monitor as it looks perfectly clear to me.
So to sum it up, I arrive at the airport some 2 hours before the flight, go to the check in and leave my baggage, there I receive the boarding pass and go to through security screening and after that just board the plane once the boarding has started? Where is the border part, where they check my passport/ID, is it a part of the Check-in or do they do it on the boarding gate?
Then once I land, since it’s a international flight, I have my ID checked somewhere (where?), find my luggage carousel and that’s it, right?
Another small question.
- Do you pay for the check in or is it a part of a ticket price? I may be using Air Serbia (Etihad), the other possible airline is Montenegro Airlines, but they don’t have a lot of info on their site. Air Serbia/Etihad has some check-in options written and it says that you have to pay 30 euros for a check in for T,E and for U,V classes, but not for L,Q,M, K and H,B, Y (scroll down to find it https://www.airserbia.com/en-RS/airport-check-in )
I have no idea what those check in options mean, whether it’s something Etihad related or something in general and I can’t find a explanation on their site.
There isn’t a “problem.” Different people have different settings. Why don’t you just use the quote function if you know how?
I don’t think many of us will know what these things mean. I’ve never heard of these options. They are likely specific to that airline or to the airline industry in your country.
Customs and passport/border control usually happens after you arrive at your destination and after you have collected your baggage.
Correct!
They will check it at the check in desk, then again at the departure gate when you board the plane. If you buy anything in the shops after the security check point (AKA ‘airside’, they may ask to see your boarding pass, so keep it handy.
When you get off the plane, you will either (a) board a bus waiting at the foot of the plane’s steps or (b) walk though a tunnel straight into the airport. Either way, when you enter the terminal building, you will be directed to ‘passport control’, where you will queue up to have your passport checked. You won’t miss this, you can’t physically get through the airport without passing through the passport control - you are directed/herded like sheep in the right direction.
You will then follow signs to ‘baggage collection/reclaim’ - again, you can’t miss this as you’ll be shepherded in that direction. In the baggage reclaim area, depending on the size of the airport, their may be one baggage carousel or many (in which case boards will tell you which carousel services your flight). There will be a short wait for your baggage to appear, unless passport control has been very slow.
You will then exit the airport, probably going through ‘customs’, where they ‘may’ do spot checks on people’s luggage to make sure you haven’t smuggled anything in illegally, or you may simply walk straight out through a door.
Airlines tend to categorize their seating plans by ‘class’, giving you the option to purchase specific seats or seats in a more desirable area of the plane, or allowing you to board earlier than other passengers. It’s just upselling, and is normally done when you either buy the ticket, or check-in online. You can just buy the cheapest seat and take pot luck if you don’t mind where you sit.
As I said, they are just trying to sell you priority boarding or better seats
Passport control is always before baggage reclaim. Also, customs is not passport control. Customs checks come after baggage reclaim.
Basically, passport control is to check if you are allowed to enter the country. Customs is check if you have brought anything into the country that you shouldn’t have (eg drugs or goods which you haven’t paid import duties on).
Food and Drink: You’re generally not allowed to bring any food and drink through the security checkpoint. this after a terror plot scare involving liquid explosives. There’s strict limits on any kind of liquids and gels you can bring through the checkpoint, and doing so may subject you to extra attention. On the other side of the checkpoint there’s generally the opportunity to buy food and drink, which might range from a vending machine up to a sit-down restaurant depending on the size of the airport and the time of day, at higher prices than what you’d normally find. They don’t care if you bring something purchased here on the plane, and you’re unlikely to get much for food or drink on an economy ticket. (in the US Southwest provides soft drinks or coffee and peanuts only, and even this is unusual).
Toilets: The best thing is to plan on not needing one. They exist but they’re extremely cramped and you’re not allowed to use them on the ground, when the plane is ascending or descending, or any time there’s turbulence.
Passports: On your way in you’ll be asked to show your passport at some point, at check-in and/or boarding the plane as the airline doesn’t want anyone without proper documents on board. The main “border crossing” happens on the way out. There is a special international arrival area. You exit the plane, close by will be a carousel for retrieving your bags (on domestic flights by contrast the carousel is usually some distance from the gate, generally on a lower floor). You then go through customs formalities with your bags before going out into the lobby area to meet your party of for ground transportation.
Check In Fees- Speaking of the US I’ve not heard of this, but check-in is where you pay any luggage fees.
Lots of big numbers are really sets of smaller numbers IF you know how to decode them. Unless you work there, you probably won’t know how to decode them. For instance, your bank account number may be 123456789 but some people who work at the bank know that your base account # is 123456. The next two digits (78) refer to your account type (checking, savings, loan, etc.) & the “9” is a check digit (used to confirm that the rest are correct).
Your ticket # / boarding pass will have a long string of letters/numbers. One of those characters is your class, which denotes things like first class or economy seating, full fare or discounted purchase price, or even if checked / carry on luggage fee was purchased in advance (for some airlines, esp the discount ones). Another one is if you are in their frequent flyer program, & if so, what level you are: (regular, premium, super premium, etc.)
In short, T, E, U, & V are less expensive tickets so they include less, while classes L,Q,M, K and H,B, Y are classes that denote some premium level of service/reduced fee included in them. In short, since you didn’t book the ticket, you’d probably need to go back to the tourist agency that booked it for you to ask them.
Once you get off the plane, follow the signs to “Bag(age) claim”. You may/not have to go thru customs/passport control either before or after. You may get there before or after your luggage (they need time to unload all the bags onto a bag train & then drive them inside to the point where they go onto your carousel. When you get to the carousel area many airports have multiple carousels; look for a sign with your airline & flight number - that is the carousel your bag(s) will be on.
Only if your bags exceed the weight or number of bags allowed.
Try selecting the problem text. This may make it more readable.
Wait, so T,E,U and V are lower range seats, but in this case ( here’s the link again https://www.airserbia.com/en-RS/airport-check-in ) you actually have to pay 30 euros more for them, while all other categories don’t cost anything? And in the end I’ll have to pay 130 euros (the price they told me at the tourist agency) + these 30 euros they didn’t tell me about?
Also bellow those class things it says the following: Airports where guests will not be charged for checking in at the airport desk include… and then a bunch of airports, Belgrade is not written, but the airport in Montenegro is written on the list, so…does that mean that I’ll have to pay 30 euros for checking in when I go there, but not when I come back?
I haven’t yet booked anything btw, I am just at the planning stage, I went to the agency just to ask roughly how much it would cost and they said 130 euros with taxes included. They didn’t mention this checking in thing, the base price for that flight you can find on the internet is around 120 euros, so I guess that their reservation price is 10 euros, which means that the 30 euros checking in probably isn’t included.
Missed that somehow, even on the second pass. :smack:
A couple of things at the Beograd end:
My preference is to get to airport a bit earlier than required, check bags then have a beer or feed and people-watch.
Bring a book or load stuff on your phone - your flight might get delayed.
Double check you don’t have scissors etc and other forbidden things in you cabin luggage. You will be asked this when you get your boarding pass, and your bag will be scanned as you move into the transit area. If you have anything suspicious they may tear your bag apart, or if they feel compelled, may take you off for a more thorough check, and you risk missing flight.
Even if airline and airport staff are not overly nice to you, you should be nice to them… you are the millionth person they’ve seen, and as we see regularly on the news they often have to deal with complete arseholes. You sound perfectly nice and normal, and hopefully your fellow passengers will be the same.
A couple of things at the Montenegrin end:
Get some Euros before you leave Serbia - while you have the luxury of shopping for best rate. Airport exchange rates always high. Some cash will come in handy, even just for snacks.
If you know where you are staying see if they have an airport pickup. May be a lot cheaper than a cab.
its great you’re getting your first flight, but as a serious alternative have you checked out buses. Former Yugoslav republics still have the most excellent and cheap national bus services.
[hijack]
Well, okay, maybe “hijack” isn’t the safest word to use here.
I’ve seen worse – some sites have titles, etc., in blue text on a BLACK background. Totally almost invisible. Helpful hint: In general, if text is hard to read because of foreground or background colors, just highlight the entire page. (Control-A on most browsers; Command-A I think for Apple.) This almost always helps.
Also useful when SDMB users helpfully include hidden white-on-white text in their posts for whatever nefarious reasons. Here, try it yourself: Oh say can you see? If not, maybe it’s classified information or something, but now you know the trick! But wait! There’s even more you didn’t even know was here!
[/hijack]
I’ve contacted both the tourist agency and the airline over Facebook, but neither of them are online at the moment, so I’ll have to wait to ask for the 30e check in thing.
I always go with a bus, but that takes around 12-15 hours just to get there, plus the same amount back, so around 25-30 hours total, basically an entire day spent bored to death sitting and I sometimes get stomach problems when I spend hours on wavy mountain roads.
Trains would also be ok, since they have toilets, you can walk around, open windows,etc, but they take even longer and are not really safe, while flying would take just half an hour (on the online schedules it says 1 hour, but looking at http://flightradar24.com/ most of them do it in around half an hour)
Also I’m thinking of going a little further in the next few years, maybe Prague, Berlin or something, so I guess it would be usefull to learn how to use planes before I go to those places. 
LSLguy, I’d love to hear a story of the “worst case scenario”. I’ve only flown to a few foreign countries (Germany, Argentina, France) and I barely recall having any trouble at all. Even when the procedures were slightly different, you’d get herded into easy to understand queues and there would be plenty of English signage. Just don’t lose your passport, that’s super bad. (I didn’t, but it’s what you need to get past a rather stern looking barricade each airport would have between international arrivals and actually leaving)
But these were all first and second world countries.
A great many (smaller) airports have a business(es) somewhere on site where you can rent your very own airplane for a few days, just like renting a car. Substantially ALL of the usual hassles of air travel are absent if you do this. If you want to go that route, there is a whole class of different questions the first-time flyer/renter would need to ask.
They will want to know, for example, if you have the appropriate insurance policy. You’ll need to plan ahead to decide if you want, e.g., a two-seater or a four-seater or six-seater, etc. It’s important to know the weights of each passenger and baggage, as these can be critical. A typical Cessna 172, for example, can fly with four people aboard but only if the two in the rear seat are children. Be sure to ask if the rental cost includes gas.
For international flights, as OP has planned, there are all the usual additional complications.
As a first-time flyer, the OP might also want to hire a pilot, although more experienced (and licensed) flyers might do it themselves.
I don’t want to extend this hijack indefinitely, so I will leave it at this—I know about highlighting text, but most of the time I’m not on a computer and I’m accessing the boards through Tapatalk on my mobile and highlighting is not an option. And there’s really no good reason not to use the functionality that is provided by the boards. That avoids other users’ needing to use any “tricks.” In a community that communicates through such an artificial means, norms have a purpose.
Can I have a hit off what you are smoking? The risk and relative cost of general aviation puts it into a totally separate category. It’s far more risky, and far more expensive. The OP should show up at the airport early and just get herded through the process like everyone else. As long as he has a ticket, an ID, and his luggage in a suitcase, and he doesn’t go crazy or resist the cops, he’s going to make it through just fine. They have people there to tell you what to do if you need it.