Austrian Airlines

✅ Trip Verified | Vienna to Washington return. Overall, a very pleasant experience. Both flights were on time, with the outbound one even arriving well before schedule. One the reasons for that might have been the surprisingly efficient boarding on both occasions. Check-in went smoothly at both airports, even though the counter was rather difficult to find in IAD, due to virtually non-existent information screens at that airport. Ground staff was always friendly. On both flights, cabin crew was very friendly and hard-working, running up and down to serve drinks throughout the whole flight. The food was very good and the onboard entertainment satisfactory. The plane was a seemingly modern B-767 with 2-3-2 seating and enough legroom, so that even as a tall man I was able to get some sleep.

✅ Trip Verified | I was very frustrated, not to say shocked with the apparently new Austrian service plan. First, Austrian puts 10 seats in one row of a 777 (3-4-3), while other airlines fly with 9 seats per row only. That by itself makes it hard to feel comfortable, since you are always in direct contact with the neighbour's shoulder. The worst however is the service. The food consisted of a 2 cm by 2 cm large piece of meat, a spoon of mashed potatoes and one carrot (see photo), served in a disposable triangle. Drinks were only offered once, following the new service plan of Austrian. When I complained about food and service one of the flight crew members told me that this is the new service directive and food service from Austria. The crew were not happy with it either and indeed felt embarrassed about the quality. All these little extras, that make a flight a little bit more comfortable are missing on Austrian. The nuts and drinks prior to the dinner, the hot (paper) towels prior to dinner and breakfast, nobody went through the cabin offering drinks. I emphasize, that I do not blame the crew. Indeed, they were all very friendly and helped as much as they could. But what can you do if there is not enough food/drinks on board and the company asks you to reduce the service to an absolute minimum. Well, I made my decision. Austrian long haul flights, never again.

✅ Trip Verified | Hong Kong to Vienna. I bought the ticket with a relatively low price. The cabin was not fully occupied so I managed to sleep on three seats. The food was delicious and I asked for an extra meal. They provided frequent drinks so that I did not feel thirsty. The cabin crew was very friendly and kind that they smiled all the time. The inflight entertainment provides a wide variety of choice as well. The cabin was new and clean. Everyone got a blanket and a pillow. The flight arrived punctually.

✅ Trip Verified | Had a rather frustrating experience in December, my connection flight from Toronto to Vienna has been cancelled due to technical problems. Austrian refused to re-book it and insisted it had to be done by my booking agent, FlightCentre. FlightCentre did get me alternate flight with other airlines but told me it should have been done by Austrian. And on the return flight from Vienna to Toronto the same issue, presumably with the same plane - the departure flight got delayed a couple of times, then it was cancelled after a delay of nearly 5 hours. I was not pleased and wowed to never fly Austrian again. Fortunately, this time they did much better, provided the customers with a airport hotel and food, and best of all - early next morning they got me to Paris and my final destination in Vancouver by another carrier (Air France). Because of this, I would give them another chance in the future and the professional and prompt resolution of the second cancellation improved my opinion of the airline a lot. Why on earth did not behave the same way in December?

✅ Trip Verified | Copenhagen - Vienna - Hong Kong on 3rd Jan 2018. (Billund) - Copenhagen - Vienna - Hong Kong on A320 and B777-300, respectively. The short leg CPH-VIE seat had a terrible economy seat offering to business class passengers. Food was very sparse and only 1 hot dish was offered, completely in contrast to the international luxury offerings (see below). However, good FAs. Champagne offered. Check-in in BLL (Denmark) with a useless, inert, junior agent (3rd party, SAS-agent) could not identify my onwards bookings (despite providing boarding cards as prof) and rejected to check-in my luggage further than HKG. The long haul flight VIE-HKG was one of my best flights ever. Have been missing Austrian for its innovations, fresh and super-alert FA’s, colours, decos, and excellent food. 3 Austrian beers offered, one in original bottles. 2 champagnes, lots of reds and whites. For Lunch I consumed two main-dishes: the calf was devine. Also, an Italian cheese-pasta was very nice. 3 hot meals offered on this 12 hours flight: they had each 3, 1, and 2 hot offerings, respectively (for lunch, supper, and breakfast). The VIE-HKG was full but the FA coped well: smiling, attentive, focused, proactive, and caring. The flight was 10/10 but the seat could not recline to horizontal position (lacking 3-5 degrees). The handset controller did not work. Further, the flight CPH-VIE on a A320 cannot exceed an 8/10 score. Altogether, an exotic, focused airline of high quality. Luggage arrived smoothly. I will go again. Much better than Swiss and – in this case: also better than Qatar and Turkish.

✅ Trip Verified | Vienna to Bangkok. I was initially booked on Economy on OS1015. At the gate, the gate agent offered an upgrade to Premium Economy for €149. I grabbed the opportunity to try out their Premium Economy product as this was my first time travelling long haul on Austrian Airlines. So I picked up my new boarding pass and settled into seat 10H which was the first row of Premium Economy. The seating configuration was 2-4-2 instead of 3-4-3 in Economy. Seat pitch was generous and incline was good giving me a good sleep for the 9.5 hour red eye flight. However, the earphones were of the in-ear type and sound quality was not good. I would have expected over-ear headphones for Premium Economy. No amenity kit was distributed but I guess this is standard practice for the majority of European airlines on their economy and premium economy products. Catering was of course economy catering. Overall, Austrian’s Premium Economy product was good and service was efficient. It was worth the extra €149 paid.

✅ Trip Verified | Chicago to Vienna on their Boeing 767, with a very nice interior and a great entertainment system. Austrian's impeccably trained and very well-groomed cabin crew were at the top of their game both times. I also had a great experience with kind airport agents. My first issue - seat selection for a booking made via United was not available on Austrian's website for the segments of my itinerary they operated. I was assigned random seats when I checked in. Lufthansa on the other hand allow seat selection on their website for segments they operate, even when you book via United. My second issue was food. You'd expect that on a 9 hour overnight flight they'd pamper you more in terms of food (beverage service is pretty varied, but I care more about food service. On the long-haul flight for dinner they have a choice of two dishes with a limited amount of servings available, so that when one is gone, you are stuck with the other. The assumption that everyone will automatically accept what is left has proven wrong in my case, because for personal reasons, I didn't want the pasta with that was left, but the dish that was gone (chicken). As they couldn't accommodate my request, I asked if they had any snacks for purchase. They first misunderstood me and gave me 3 more bags of some salty crackers that they had served as a starter. I was told the only thing they had for purchase was chocolate (I assume as a part of their duty-free offer). It turned out my only option was to eat the dish that they had left, buy chocolate or stay hungry. Before landing we were served a muffin for breakfast. I personally do not like having sweets as a meal.

✅ Trip Verified | Amsterdam to Kiev via Vienna. Check-in was made online and I printed my boarding pass on a kiosk at the airport. I could use fast track through security which was this time reasonably fast considering the time of the day and the fact that you are at Schiphol Airport. Boarding was quick and efficient and I was told by the purser that 'I could take any seat I wanted'. Departure and arrival on time. Arrival in Vienna was at a remote stand and we had to wait a short while for the busses to arrive. Having a 50min lay-over was not a problem, I only had to pass immigration (there was no security check in transit) but did not have any time to spend in the OS lounge. Boarding for the 2nd leg started in time and we were bussed to the aircraft which was on a remote stand. While on board the flight was delayed with almost 30 minutes. During the delay the passengers in C were offered water or juice. At the end we arrived 20min. late in Kiev. On both legs the cabin crew were as usual friendly and attentive. Legroom in the Airbus was OK but the ERJ felt very cramped.

✅ Trip Verified | Frankfurt to Vienna. They lost my luggage on my way from Frankfurt. They suggested that I check in my carry on too, so I did to help them out. Someone called me today and said my luggage is in Munich - why in Munich I have no clue! They said they might be able to get my luggage to me next week. I called no answer, I emailed no answer, I called to Munich and got transferred to phone number that hang up on me. All I wanted to know is where my luggage is and get it!

✅ Trip Verified | Chicago to Vienna. The worst experience I had. I was traveling with 11 month old baby, just 2 of us. It was really hard but the stuff weren't that helpful. My baby really active and I put tray with food on floor, so he doesn't mess with it and When time came to clean I asked the steward to clean it and he roll his eyes on me and said " Are you serious put it on floor what I suppose to clean your mess after you now".