Welcome to the first part of my trip to Milan via Vienna onboard Austrian Airlines. Once more this year I had an opportunity to try a new airline, visit new airport and experience an old but new for me aircraft, Fokker 100. The whole trip plan looked like this:
I was looking very much forward to this trip as I haven't flown Austrian Airlines before but as mentioned before, my biggest treat was supposed to be the the F100 on the last leg and I was praying day and night not to have it changed to Q400 or E195. Anyway I must say this very short business trip to Italy gave a great opportunity to check the airline's product on short European flights and Vienna as transfer airport with very short transfer time. Let's see how it went.
The airport was very busy when I entered the terminal. It was Sunday evening and a lot of long haul flights where scheduled to depart.
Austrian uses check-in kiosks shared with Lufthansa, Swiss and Brussels Airlines. There are plenty of them and usually the whole procedure takes less than a couple of minutes.
The queue for security wasn't as big as it first seemed. I thought the bad times have already gone but still WAW has the ruddest security staff I have experienced so far. The man that was supposed to give me instructions what to take out of my hand luggage asked me to take all the liquids I had and put them on a tray in a special plastic bag. I was prepared for that and packed them this way at home. When I took it out of the bag he shouted so that all the airport could hear: "Oh my God, you have more cosmetics than a woman!" I sent him an angry look and thought that if my parfume and tooth paste was more than what his wife uses then he's a poor thing! Where do they take this people from???
Being airside I managed to catch this birds before my boarding begun:
LO 787 with EK 777 tail
and LH A319 to MUC
Then it was time for my Embraer 195 that looks quite decent in Austrian livery
Small Planet A321 in the background
and LO 787
Time to come on board and try Austrian Airlines. Finally.
My gate
and view from jetbridge
While getting on board we are greeted by a young male and a senior female FAs. They both seem friendly and smile all the time. I must say the cabin of this E 95 looks great with all these small Austrian details that give this cosy feeling. Even the courtain between business and economy class have special colours. A very nice small touch.
My seat is in row number 7 right after the business class, so maybe that's why the legroom is so generous.
We start taxiing and I can spot another LOT 787 and Arkia 757 on a remote stand
Ryanair taking off ahead of us
and Smartwings 737-800 waiting for its turn followed by LOT Q400
some views of WAW as we take off and climb
Once we reached our cruising altitude the curtain has been closed an the service in business class begun. As the curtain was short and didn't close all the aisle I could watch (and smell) the business class service. I noticed a warm dish has been served, it looked like goulash soup, anyway it smelled very nice. The female purser was very attentive and present in the bussiness class section.
Let's not forget I fly economy today :( Finally our time for snack and beverages came. Austrian offers a choice between salty or sweet snack together with a wide range of beverages. Even if you take two different beverages FAs ask if you want anything more, maybe tea or coffee. That's very rare in most of the airlines these days.
I decided to take the salty pretzels and austrian beer Ottakringer and a glass of water too.
Time to see the seat pocket content
and one more look of this very nice cabin as we begin our descend to Vienna and the curtain is stowed
I must admit it was one of the slowest and longest descends I have ever had. As soon as we passed the clouds I noticed Danube river and Vienna airport that we passed on our right.
Then we reached Neusiedler See and started a deep turn right over this big and very shallow lake.
On this picture it looks as if we were flying over Dead Sea!
On short finals
Landing
This is my first time in Vienna airport and to be honest it doesn't make good impression at first the terminal being black and looking unfriendly. There are a lot of remote stands and it seems many Austrian aircraft use them instead of the jetbridges. Anyway VIE is definitely an Austrian land!
We stop at a distant remote stand too and are taken to the terminal by bus.
I will write something more about my impressions from Vienna airport in the next part describing the flight to Milan.
Thanks for reading by now!
See more
Verdict
Austrian Airlines
7.9/10
Cabin9.5
Cabin crew9.0
Entertainment/wifi5.0
Meal/catering8.0
Warsaw - WAW
8.6/10
Efficiency9.0
Access9.0
Services7.5
Cleanliness9.0
Vienna - VIE
7.8/10
Efficiency9.0
Access5.0
Services8.0
Cleanliness9.0
Conclusion
As for the first flight Austrian makes a very good impression: new aircraft, nice cabin, basic but ok for a 50 minutes flight catering, freindly cabin crew. VIE doesn't seem a very friendly airport at first but it is beuatifully situated and surrounded by Danube river and green fields that in the middle of May look great being in full blossom.
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Thanks for this FR. I like the black and dark tone on VIE terminal, but I guess that's a matter of taste. Nice cabin and decent service, something more substantial than some pretzels would be nice but in times BoB that's always something.
Thanks. Yes, that is how we start to appreciate something that in other conditions wouldn't even be worth mentioning. 10 years ago I would call it a very poor service and now I'm happy to have a beer and pretzels.
Thanks for a very nice comment. I should have got used to this security but should I get used to rudeness? These Austrian E95s are very nice inside and outside. There are a lot of flights daily between WAW and ARN, I think LOT now operates flights to Stockholm only on Nordica's CRJ-900s. Have a nice afternoon!
Very nice report as usual Loukas! The E195 looks sexy in the Austrian livery. I am a fan of E-jets in general. They are always super comfortable in Y IMO. The new cabin interior looks really nice too. Seems like VIE is a lot like FRA with so many aircraft parked at remote stands. Must be an LH-Group thing, haha. Thanks for sharing!
Haha, I hear you. That's like me and AA 738s. I fly them so much, I find them super boring now, unless I get a good one with PTVs, which is rare. I'll take an E-Jet over a CRJ any day, though.
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7 Comments
I like the black and dark tone on VIE terminal, but I guess that's a matter of taste.
Nice cabin and decent service, something more substantial than some pretzels would be nice but in times BoB that's always something.
Sorry to hear about the experience at security.
Fantastic spotting shots at WAW.
“My gate“
- Nice to see a flight to Stockholm departing after your flight from the same gate.
Thanks for all of the detail, I do not think I have read a report on these E-195s so it nice to see them from the inside now.
Stunning aerial shots.
Have a good one, see you!
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