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Anglo Austrian Society |
I decided to give Austrian another try last week and flew Vienna to
First 9 rows (of a 737) were business with few passengers, the rest of
Whether Austrian's new masters can restore some quality in a once
As I prefer to travel with my luggage than have it lost or sent on
Would be wonderful if Lufthansa could offer direct flights between UK
On 24 June, 09:51, Steve <stevepatria...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> It is curious that Austria - UK routes are so poorly served,
> There is a fairly good routing form Vienna to most major UK airports
> Swiss via Zurich is just about the worst imaginable experience. It
> Further once in Zurich, long queues for passport control and the
> Yet Manchester airport has flights to almost every major European city
> Vienna is the cultural capital of Europe - maybe it says more about
> Austrian Airlines offer excellent links to Eastern Europe - and a
> So, why not turn to rail? Well Austrian railways have just stopped
> Basically Austria is pretty isolated from the west - and try getting
> So my fellow members - should we not campaign to open up routes to
London Heathrow - in economy. Sat in the aircraft for an hour at the
gate - delay said to have been caused by over-filling the fuel tanks
and making the plane unsafe to fly - thank heavens someone noticed it
before take off! Can this be a professional outfit? The last time I
flew Austrian we were delayed an hour when an air hostess decided just
as we reached the runway - that she felt sick. Taxi back to the gate
and over an hour wait for a relief crew. I do not think this would
have heppened on BA where cabin staff would have to decide wheter fit
to fly before the plane left the gate.
us cramped into the back with those short seat pitches for which
Austrian is notorious. the old 'restaurant in the sky' ideal has been
replaced by a cheese sandwich in the sky mediocrity. No drink offered
until an hour and a half into the flight.
great airline remains to be seen.
days later I tend to avoid BA, but recent experiences of Austrian have
taken me back to BA.
and Austria.
> As an Ango Austrian Society we should perhaps take note of just how
> hard it is actually to travel between the UK and Austria. Outside
> London, Austria becomes one of the remotest countries in Europe!
> especially from outside the London area. With the uncertainties over
> the future of Sky Europe and the route Manchester to Bratislava we are
> likely to see the situation worsen again. Manchester once had two
> airlines flying to Vienna - BA and Lauda - now there is none!
> via Munich - but the Vienna to Munich leg is notoriously subject to
> delays. Although Munich airport is excellently run and every effort is
> made to enable passengers to access connections, sometimes things go
> wrong. Duesseldorf, Hamburg and if pushed - Frankfurt - all offer
> oportunities for connecting flights (though Frankfurt demands an
> additional security check with resultant queuing and UK passengers are
> isolated at a gate in a crowded basement with no facilties - it is a
> herding cattle philosophy at Frankfurt).
> begins with an inability to check in online because of the
> inadequacies of the Swiss computer system. This is further exacerbated
> by the fact that in Vienna they are also unable to print a boarding
> pass for a flight out of Zurich. Ask the kindly Lufthansa counter
> staff and they will phone thorugh and check you in from Zurich by
> phone but still you have no boarding pass. They will also tell you
> they get several complaints a day about Swiss check in. In Vienna
> don't try to use the machines as they don't work with Swiss, you have
> to join one of those interminable queues instead.
> demand to repeat security procedures with queues backed up on
> staircases and escalators, makes the whole process nightmarish. One
> simply cannot recommend anyone routing through Zurich flying to or
> from Vienna and going out of Schengen. Flying via London is always
> miserable because of the perils of Heathrow - but it is particularly
> dismal if your connecting flight is with BMI outward as they will not
> check your luggage through unless you have a single through ticket.
> Flying into UK, Austrian are much more helpful and will check luggage
> through to any UK provincial airport. But depart with BMI and you have
> to allow an hour in Heathrow to collect luggage and then time to
> transfer and check in. In short - travelling to Vienna from the UK
> outside London can be an all-day journey.
> - and certainly to the capitals - although Vienna is impossible, you
> can easily fly to Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, and every major German
> city.
> the UK than about Austria that actually getting there is such a
> challenge!
> superb daily flight to Cyprus - a great alternative to charters, but
> until we can get some decent flights into Vienna the market remains
> closed to the UK. Even London to Vienna is at best, satisfactory, with
> some new airbuses, but some flights are operated by Tyrollean with
> relatively small aircraft making the flight pretty cramped and
> uncomfortable.
> their overnight car service to and from Duesseldorf. The only services
> out of Vienna now operate to Italy and the Balkans or internally to
> Feldkirch. There is now no overnight train to Austria from the Channel
> or even form Paris or Brussels. So Eurostar is not much help either.
> on the Munich - Salzburg motorway any summer weekend and you won't
> find that a happy experience either. From the East, oddly enough the
> links are better - direct flights to most major East European cities,
> direct rail out to Ukraine, Poland, Serbia, Roumania and Bulgaria,
> plenty of trains to Italy, cheap flights to Roumania and Italy - as
> well as all the usual holiday hot spots.
> Austria? Or maybe we should maintain the status quo - keep it the most
> difficult country in Europe to access from UK - and hence keep it to
> ourselves!