Hi all,
After four whole days staying at home, it was time to start my two weeks shift with my employer and to find my way to Piest'any in Slovakia. Given that Slovakia isn't the easiest place to get to by air travel, the company opted to book me on a flight to Vienna with Austrian and grab a train from there to Slovakia.
Scheduled at 9.55 AM, I decided to grab the first train to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol with a short stop… This plan was soon to be demolished when the actual machinist decided to arrive 1 minute ahead of our actual departure which meant that me and a few other travellers would miss our connection to Amsterdam Schiphol, so I quickly checked out and decided to go by car. Thanks NS (Dutch Railways)!
It was about a 40 minute drive to Amsterdam from my hometown, but I didn't look forward to pay this 200 euros of parking (without reservation), but at this time it was my only choice to do so.
Car was eventually dropped at P3 Long Parking and took a seat with the shuttle bus provided by Schiphol, which drives every so many minutes 24 hours a day.
Austrian's check-in counter is in Terminal 1 at Row 1 to 3 together with any other European ''Schengen'' Star Alliance member. The self drop counter is easy to use and explains you pretty easy as to what to do. Even to attach the luggage tag to your bag is not hocus pocus level :).
The Self Service Counters were pretty quiet with no waiting times as you can see.
Security was a breeze and took no more than a few minutes to clear. I love the fact that the screening devices of Amsterdam's Security control do not require you to take out any of the electronic devices, which saves you a lot of time to be honest. While landside was pretty quiet, airside was booming!
Gate B35 would be the gate for our departure and the line of sheeps was already there to board the aircraft while the boarding wasn't even called yet.
Today's flight would be performed by OE-LXD. A 15 year old Airbus A320 that was newly delivered to Air One in August 2008 as EI-DSS. It was taken over by Air Berlin as D-ABZB on February 2015 before joining Austrian in March 2017.
Boarding was called with a delay of approximately 15 minutes and ground staff regulated boarding by groups as according to your boarding cards, so a lot of those sheeps in line were bypassed given the fact they were in one of the latest boarding groups, yet a lot did try to board before that. :)
A view of the fuselage before being kindly greeted by one of the flight attendants.
21F would be my seat for today. Not a massive fan of those seats as you are probably aware of my previous flight reports, yet the colouring of the seats gives a nice touch to the cabin.
Despite not having any padding, the legroom with those Recaro seats is of no issue to be honest.
The view of my seat with a CRJ of SAS just pulling into the parking.
Pushback was about 30 minutes past our scheduled departure with a five minute taxi or so to Runway 09 for today's departure.
The cabin however felt very clean, well maintained and updated. The aircraft despite being 15 years old did not show any sign of wear and tear and was installed with individual air vents.
a view of the cabin. It took me a while to realize that the person in a row ahead of the one in front of mine actually bought an extra seat for her instrument to be carried on board.
The literature of Austrian's A320 consists of a BoB menu, two type of safety cards and Austrian's magazine. The BoB menu of Austrian isn't particularly huge, but does have some interesting local options to their menu.
The BoB service was eventually engaged about 25 minutes into flight and went on a rather slow pace compared to low-cost airlines like Vueling, Ryanair and/or EasyJet, though a cup of water is free of charge, which I opted for.
Upon completing their BoB service, the flight attendants came out once again to serve us their chocolate, which isn't something to write home about as this type of chocolate isn't my favourite one, but is somewhat of a nice gesture.
About 10 minutes prior to landing, we were into our descent to Vienna.
It took quite a while till we were clear of clouds and noticed that we would be landing on Runway 11 for today's flight.
Lucky….. A remote stand with this pissing weather.
A final view of OE-LXD before being stowed in a bus which was already full of people and could barely hold any more……. A total of two buses for a fully loaded A320 is simply not the way to go Austrian……
Luggage took about 20 minutes or so to arrive on belt no. 2.
Bought myself a train ticket for 27.90 euros to Piest'any with a stop in Vienna Hbf & Bratislava Hl. St. before joining the last train to my final destination.
Thanks for stopping by!
Looks like these ex-Air Berlin A320s still don't have Wi-Fi and still have the old AB cabins, though they weren't that much different from the LH Group NEK seats so hardly noticeable. Some of the Y180 A320s have USB ports, but it doesn't seem like this was one of them.
Hah, I do hear that often, although they've all gone to BOB in the LH Group, which is a shame. At least carriers in the US still offer free soft-drinks. I can undertand charging for food, but soft drinks just looks so bad for a full-service carrier.
Thanks for sharing!