After more than 3 years on the ground, It's time to get back to buisness with my trip to Prague on OS and LH.
I booked the flight on Austrian website with the Economy basic plus fare with OS flight on the first 2 legs and going back with LX, then I had to change to another LX flights and finally to LH. After all the changes it cost me 352$ including checked baggage.
Flight routing
- 1OS858 TLV-VIE Airbus A320 OE-LBL
- 2
- 3
- 4
So on the day of the flight my family drove me to the airport, And as I got there more than 3 hours before departure there was already a long endless line for check in. Even though I did online check-in 47 hours before, I had to send my baggage.
Maybe 3 check-in desks for a 100% full A320
Luckily, Security and Passport control went really quick so I had a lot of time for errands and shopping for my vacation, And of course for taking pictures.
That used to be a fountain…
Today's flights, no LY flights today (friday) as they don't fly on Shabbat, starts from Friday evening.
D concourse, which was completely empty today, as it's used mainly by LY.
Some Planespotting: (It's hard in TLV because of the black dots)
As the flight was completely full, the gate was crowded a long time before actual boarding, so meanwhile I waited on the remote gate stand below
That's our ride for this 3:30h flight, A 2003 Austrian Airbus A320 registered OE-LBL.
when I saw everyone at the gate i couldn't realize they all waiting to board our tiny A320, it looked an A380 boarding! So of course it was long and chaotic.
My seat was 21A so I got this really nice wing view. The seat wasn't the best but enough for such flight and definitely better than what newer planes have. Not suprisingly, B and C were occupied.
About 30-35 minutes after schedule, we finally started pushback.
After 45 minutes delay, It's time for takeoff.
View of Tel Aviv/somwhere nearby coast after depature:
The ''entertainment'' available for this flight is Austrian website including flight map and WI-FI for purchase.
Some sunset wing views over Greece and Turkey:
Now for the part we all waited for: the food.
Unfortunately, the service flight is only sandwich and drinks.
Although I contacted the airline before that and they informed me we will get a full meal. I asked one of the crew members and she didn't have a proper answer. I was expecting much more than a high quality full service carrier.
Cheese&Tomato Toast
At least there is tomato juice. Took 2 cups. And the crew also served a small chocolate which is a nice gesture.
The flight was smooth without any special events, The cabin crew were nice and did their job. After more than 3 hours it was time to land in Vienna, although many passengers had connecting flights to many destinations in Europe.
We landed on a short 15 minutes delay and taxied to our gate on the F concourse. Next to us is a Lot E190 going to Warsaw.
Now it's tome to get off he plane and head to my connecting flight to Prague. That will be in the next part…
Welcome back to the skies! It's been a rough few years for those of us who like to fly and conditions for flying to/from Israel have been particulatly strict in the Covid-era so I can only imagine how freeing it felt to get out and back in the air after 3 years!
I like that they at least have the map feature, though it would be really nice to see OS add streaming entertainment to mobile devices on the narrowbody fleet.
Wow, it's really a stretch that OS call that sandwich a full meal. It's fine for a 3.5h flight, but they shouldn't call it a full meal when purchasing the ticket (that is indeed how it appears).
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your comment! Yeah it felt amazing I missed it so much. About the meal, I later contacted the airline about that and they replied they changed the catering ''concept'' which is a common excuse for airlines nowdays, but never mind it wasn't that bad.
Thanks for sharing this FR with us! Looks like Lufthansa Group has uniformly decimated the Y service post-COVID across all their brands. TLV should be catered better given the distance from the continent, and did have full meals pre-COVID . A sandwich may still be more than what LH offers (we’ll see soon!), but is far behind AF that offers full meal.
The limited entertainment options are tough on such a long daytime flight, but as Kevin said, at least they have a moving map to help you track progress. Great aerials cross the Mediterranean!
Thank you for your comment! You're right about LH catering it was really bad (soon). I actually really wanted to book this trip on AF A350 and I even found a decent price but unfortunately I missed the opportunity. Next time I won't compromise about flights.
I flew on the same route (TLV-VIE) twice in 2018,
In both flights, I received a full meal (you can see the photos in my relevant flight reports).
Sandwich is acceptable for such flight distance, but it's sad that OS replaced the full meal with this sandwich.
Thanks for this review.
LH's group offering to TLV has really diminished.
No more real meals, almost no widebodies anymore.
Even IB offers a meal on flights to Israel.
Still guess OS or LX are overall nicer than LH.