Review of Austrian Airlines flight from Sofia to Vienna in Economy

introduction

Welcome back, dear readers, to the final installment of a trip to Sofia, Bulgaria. As you may remember, in my last series, I flew to Bulgaria and was able to get my first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. In this series, I'm covering the flights I took a month later in order to get my second dose. As I've posted way too many VIE ↔ SOF reports on Austrian (and have many more on the way ?), I'll try to keep this one relatively short. Let's go!

trip information

I was once again travelling with my dad for this journey, and as we needed to be in Zurich, we booked a ZRH-SOF-VIE multi-city itinerary. The following flights were flown as part of this trip:

The fare cost around €160 if I remember correctly.

Sofia airport (sof)

We headed to the airport at around 4:50 AM. Traffic in Sofia is virtually nonexistent at such early hours of the day, so we arrived shortly after 5 AM.

Check-in and security were both quick and uneventful, and I soon found myself airside.

While I did visit the lounge, I didn't take any photos of it. Feel free to check out my (and other Flight-Reporters!) reviews of the Vitosha Aspire Lounge here.

boarding + initial impressions

Shortly before boarding, I headed to a window to take a peek that the Embraer that would fly me back to Austria.

Flying me to Vienna was OE-LWO, carrying the very Austrian name of 'Wiener Johann Strauss Orchester'. Whiskey-Oscar was built in 2012, and flew for Lufthansa CityLine until 2017, when it was transferred to Austrian.

Boarding began on time at 5:30 AM, and I was one of the first to head down the jetbridge.

Fuselage shot.

Sticker at the door of the aircraft commemorating its namesake Orchestra.

As is usual on Austrian, I was greeted with a "Servus!" from the purser, who also handed me a disinfecting wipe.

A look at the port side of row 6.

At my seat, the legroom was pretty good.

In the seatback pocket were the safety instructions card…

…as well as the Melangerie menu.

Each seat also included a coat hook.

Typical Embraer PSU.

Antimacassar.

Nice view out my window.

A Bulgaria Air E190 and a Bul Air 737-300 were parked next door.

austrian 800 - sofia to vienna

The boarding process was fairly quick, and with a load of ~70% we pushed back and fire up our engines for the quick flight up to Vienna.

Taxiing towards Runway 09.

departure from sofia

Lining up.

Rolling.

Rotate.

Airborne.

Turning north.

Fantastic sunrise view.

Cabin after departure.

Takeoff video. I listened to the ATC recording of our departure on LiveATC, and apparently we had a bird strike on our takeoff roll, which I couldn't notice from the video. Can you?

Climbing through some clouds, which produced an awesome light effect.

mid-flight

Passing the Ogosta Reservoir in Northern Bulgaria.

Close up of our CF34 engine.

As the service started, the crew divided the two cabins.

I didn't order anything from the menu and didn't feel like asking for water and being denied either, so instead I just started out the window, admiring the beautiful skies of Southeastern Europe.

I visited the bathroom around halfway through the flight. It was clean and there was nothing noteworthy about it.

A shot of the cabin as I headed back to my seat.

A view out the window of Row 18.

arrival into vienna

There were no announcements from the pilots during the flight, so instead the purser announced the top of descent. Around that time, a male flight attendant passed out the chocolates.

Descending over Hungary.

Flying over the northeastern suburbs of Vienna.

Turning final.

Passing Seestadt Aspern, a new residential district of Vienna, located where Aspern Airport once stood.

Short final.

Over the airport.

Touchdown on Runway 16 exactly on time at 6:35 AM, after a flight time of 1h22m.

Vacating the runway.

Landing video:

Taxiing to our gate.

routing of os800

After departing Sofia via the OGOTA 3S departure, we flew more or less directly to Vienna, where we arrived via the PESAT 2L arrival. Our cruising altitude was 36,000ft.

Thank you very much for joining me on this journey! Unlike 6 months ago, I am way behind on my reports, so you can expect a new series covering a trip to Croatia very soon. Until then, happy flying! ✈️