Austrian Airlines Passenger Reviews and Austrian Airlines Customer Trip Reports

After recently having flown 5 star Qatar from Doha to Johannesburg in business class, Austrian was a wonderful surprise! I took an old B777 from Vienna to Narita Tokyo and experienced one of my best long haul trips. Boarding was smooth and swift, departure was on time. Cabin is colorful and not very trendy, but the retro feeling inside is loveable. It was clean and neat. Unparalleled service started right after taking off. Do&Co Vienna restaurateurs' on board chef convert the cabin into an ultra-class restaurant above the clouds. Best cuisine I have ever had on an airplane. Cabin attendants did their best to make passengers feel great throughout the flight. Those criticized angled flat sleeper seats are not that bad, not worse that of Lufthansa. Using the control buttons they can be adjusted to nearly horizontal. Entertainment system is outdated compared to other airlines. Fabulous meals, drinks and perfect service compensate everything else. 5 star experience, indeed.

Very disorganized loading. Planes are so old the fittings are dated and few function well. Seats felt like wood frames with no padding left at all. Business class with supposed lay flat seats, really just angle to a very awkward position. Video screens are too small to watch, with really no choice of movies, only those shown on a loop are available.

Flew from Istanbul to Heathrow via Vienna, the legroom I thought was not too bad, the flights went as planned and on time and staff were friendly enough. In Istanbul I thought the check-in desks could have opened earlier than they did less than 2 hours before departure. I would certainly fly Austrian again as the planes were relatively new clean and comfortable. The only thing that I could not do as I have done with other airlines I have flown is try and pick my seat when booking the flight it may just be because the flight came up on the Lufthansa booking site but never mind all in all I was pretty happy with it all.

Flew IAD-VIE. Aircraft sat on the tarmac for nearly 40 minutes in the baking heat. When various pax asked why they could not turn on the air conditioning the reply was the ac could only be turned on when they turned the aircraft engines on. Screaming children, people fanning themselves in vain and no even a glass of water offered. Needless to say the economy class cabin smelt like a pig pen throughout the flight. Terrible IFE with dated movies. Gives another meaning to cattle class. First and last time with Austrian.

CDG-VIE-BKK-VIE-BKK. 10 flights with Star Alliance (Swiss, Austrian and Lufthansa) in 2 weeks and I have to say: never again with Austrian Airlines which calls itself a full-service airline. I had a seat reservation on all flights and on 3 of 4 flights I had to move - whether at check-in or onboard! Pre-ordered special meal onboard? Not available. Inflight entertainment - didn't work properly at my seat. Friendly flight attendants - no change. I have supported OS for many years but this was the last time I flew with them. Definitely not a full-service airline anymore.

BKK-VIE return on 777-200 in Business. Service from the crew and chef was fantastic and the food was excellent, especially out of BKK. However, nothing can make up for the worst seat I have ever sat on. When boarding you are bombarded by 70's green carpet, pale blue bulkheads and purple seats with wood grain shells and yellow pillows! That could be excused if the seat made up for it but it is impossible to get comfortable in any position as it feels like being on a hard, lumpy, narrow bench. I used 2 blankets to try and soften the seat / angled bed but forget sleeping. The cabin was too warm which only added to the discomfort. The 'entertainment' system is a joke - on a loop with fuzzy screen and cheap headphones. A total disappointment that the service and catering can not make up for.

DXB-VIE-BRU in business class. First leg on 767-300ER, looking nice from the outside (winglets) but 20yrs back to the past when inside. The interior is very dated indeed: very narrow and worn-out seat, no flat bed, poor IFE, odd colours. Austrian flights always bussed to the airplane at DXB. Positive are the FAs and the quality of the catering, and the cheaper fees which do reflect the quality of the product. Austrian is not 4 stars long-haul. VIE airport not very welcoming either, but a new terminal is to open in June for Austrian. However, the VIE-BRU leg serviced by a brand new 737-800, excellent seat, excellent breakfast, top-notch short haul.

Travelled to Bangkok from London Heathrow via Vienna. Direct flights are always preferable but this trip was actually not too bad as the stopovers both on the way out and back were fairly short. Managed to sleep both ways but found the cabin too hot for my liking - a case of put the customers asleep and then less hassle for the crew? Food was generally good, however, drinks were not offered very freely. Otherwise service was efficient and professional. The business lounge in Bangkok is provided by Thai Airways and is very good with wonderful showers. By contrast the D terminal in Vienna is not great - a glorified ex-staff room with only one male toilet resulting in a queue for the facilities! I hope the new terminal at Vienna will resolve this issue and a better lounge provided? Also when boarding for the flight to London there was no pre-boarding for Business passengers which resulted in the inevitable crush. The inflight entertainment is ok - in the end if you are trying to sleep you don't need to watch more than one movie a flight. All in all I would certainly fly Austrian again.

Flew Dubai-Vienna-Toronto recently. Courteous staff, ok meals. Cons: the plane from Vienna to Toronto was very old (767) with old entertainment system (one TV screen for the whole cabin plus a bunch of smaller ones). For a 9+ hour flight I would expect better than that from a 4 star airline.

SJJ-VIE-IAD. All flights were good and on-time. First flight was on F70. Nice clean cabin, on time, small meal provided for 1h flight. VIE-IAD Beautiful new winglets, Seat very comfortable screen at every seat with remote to play games, even with other seats. Food very good. Beyond normal economy food. Soft pillow and blanket at every seat. Pilot was engaged and flight attendants too. Drink run every hour and a half keeping well hydrated. Large overhead bins for bags.

Vienna-Belgrade-Vienna. Have flown this route 3 times within the last months. Flights were always completely full. I found Austrian a good airline to fly with: cabin crew always very caring and polite, flights always on time: you can see they are Lufthansa. What is more, I really enjoyed the new Recaro seats. The only drawback are the aircraft's being used: the turboprop Dash I had the chance to fly on twice, is quite noisy and pretty uncomfortable.

INN-VIE-ZAG. Although Austrian onboard service in Europe is still better than service offered by some competitors, unreasonable changes were introduced in the premium sector. Until April 1st, business passengers and Star Alliance Gold card holders received a voucher of EUR 5 prior to the flight for refreshments since they have no lounges at smaller Austrian airports. This has been abolished from April as a part of down-grading of Austrian/Lufthansa frequent flyer services which already caused many complaints. Austrian/Lufthansa have their own way to motivate premium passengers to consider other carriers and alliances.

DXB-VIE-LNZ-VIE-DXB. Everything was bad about this flight from web check-in to arrival to final destination. Sector VIE-DXB delayed 6hrs 40 min. Service personnel at VIE extremely hostile and unhelpful. Antiquated Boeing 767 planes with poor leg room and poor onboard entertainment systems. Food unappealing. Never again.

No change really from some of the older reviews. Catering is excellent, a nice touch is the chef service. IFE very dated on a loop, not on demand, so didn't bother. Business class seat is very poor, angled lie-flat - a nice touch is the duvet and sheet but this cannot mask the extreme discomfort of the seat. Product feels poor compared to Swiss and similar to the Lufthansa seat, slightly longer but more angled in the sleep position.

DUS-NRT via VIE. Both outward and return flight were miserable. Used air sickness bag was left behind from former flight. When my wife, who felt sick, gave the bag to a flight attendant to get a new one, she was just told to go to the toilet to wash her hands - no apologies. Majority of staff seemed unmotivated and inattentive. At my wife's seat, TV monitor did not work, at my seat no reading light, staff reacted annoyed to respective complaints. Aircraft dated in general, very poor inflight entertainment, no video on demand, small choice of (mostly old) movies in general. This airline seems to have massive problems. Never again.