Austrian Airline's smaller planes are uncomfortable for long hauls, even for petite passengers
Written: Apr 25 '06 (Updated Feb 05 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Decent food and service. Frequent flier plan is honored by several airlines.
Cons: Tortuously cramped aisles and seating. Recliners bang knees behind them. Don't bother with business class.
The Bottom Line: Regarding smaller Austrian Airlines planes: avoid international flights, especially if claustrophobic, not petite and/or need to sleep. Do not fly business class; it is materially identical to coach.
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| discerningny's Full Review: Austrian Airlines |
I'm almost 5'3" and petite. My traveling companion, RJ, is a husky 6'5" football player. RJ had taught me to book exit row aisle seats when flying coach to benefit from the greater leg and elbow room compared to other coach seating. But for this trip, we had frequent flier miles to spare and had booked Business Class seats so we could luxuriate.
Our best-laid plans were for RJ to fly Delta Airlines from Florida to New York, where we would both board a Delta transatlantic flight to Barcelona. Unfortunately, a Gainesville-JFK flight delay caused us to miss our JFK-Barcelona connection. This snafu ultimately inflicted a painful crimp in our plans (and not just because we lost a day of frolicking in the Mediterranean).
Delta gave us a choice. We could fly out the next morning and arrive in Barcelona the next evening or fly overnight to Vienna via Delta's partner, Austrian Airlines, and hop an early morning connection to our destination.
RJ and I were anxious to commence our international adventure and wholly unaware that we would be more cramped on Austrian Air than we would be on the tiny, short-haul plane we would fly on the last leg of our trek. With 20/20 hindsight, we realize that we would have been better rested and in better shape when we arrived in Barcelona had we stayed overnight in New York and flown out on Delta in the morning. But we made the best decision we could given the data available at the time and our eagerness to get going.
RJ and I knew we'd made a mistake to fly via (that small plane on) Austrian Airlines the minute we boarded. Our experience mirrored that described by Sandysn in her June 10, 2005 Epinions review of Air India entitled, "Service depends on where you sit." Sandysn might as well have been traveling with RJ and me when she wrote: "Leg room might not seem like a big deal, but when you're sitting for 8 hrs at at [sic] time, it's crucial! Whatever it is, when you enter the plane, the passengers look like they're packed like sardines in a can. It makes me feel claustrophobic just looking at them."
Yep. That about summed up RJ's and my ordeal. Disappointingly, our frequent flier upgrade did not help. "Business Class" on that Austrian Airlines flight merely consisted of the first several rows of coach. The seats were no larger or more widely spaced than those in the main body of the plane. The food and service were identical, too. Whether or not First Class offered better seating was a moot point, since RJ and I had literally taken the last two empty seats on the plane.
RJ and I made another trade-off to survive the JFK-Vienna flight. The woman seated on the aisle in our row graciously gave RJ her seat in exchange for my window seat. I--the shortest and most petite of our trio--was relegated to the middle seat, where I felt like the cream crammed in the center of an oreo cookie. Rodney fared worse; he was chastised for stretching his long legs into the aisle, which was too narrow to accommodate his legs and anyone who wanted to walk by.
After that night we'd prefer to forget, RJ and I were thankful for the opportunity to stretch our legs for a short time at Vienna Airport before boarding our final flight. In comparison to the Austrian Air sardine can, the turbo-prop plane we flew from Vienna Airport to Barcelona seemed cavernous.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
discerningny
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Location: New York, USA
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
I host radio shows, teach university classes and seminars, and own a professional services firm.
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