At the end of our trip, and overnighting at the Park Hyatt Vienna, it was time to finish our grand adventure to the Maldives and Rome by heading back to Washington, D.C., aboard the Austrian Airlines 767.
I was really looking forward to this daytime flight. I have read great things about the soft product of Austrian Airlines, so I was keen to try it out.
It did not disappoint. Austrian Airlines is my new favorite way to cross the Atlantic. I am looking forward to hopefully trying Austrian Airlines new new 787 business class before the end of the year, which I expect to be even better than this flight!
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How I booked my Austrian Airlines business class ticket
I booked this ticket about 6 months out using Air Canada Aeroplan miles. For this flight, I paid 70,000 Air Canada Aeroplan miles, as well as $118.01 US per person.
More specifically, I booked:
2/17 OS 502 Rome, Italy (FCO) to Vienna, Austria (VIE) departing 10:15AM, arriving 11:55AM
2/18 OS 93, Vienna, Austria (VIE) to Washington-Dulles, Virginia (IAD), departing 10:35AM (+1), arriving 2:50PM (+1)
For this particular post, I’m not reviewing the short flight between Rome and Vienna. It was a great flight though!
Austrian Airlines lounge & boarding
We arrived at Vienna International Airport about 2 hours in advance. We wanted to make sure that there were no hiccups in checking in and going through immigration.
As we were flying business class, check-in and immigration were a breeze. We had a bit of time before boarding, so we headed to the lounge to grab a quick snack.
I didn’t take any pictures of inside the lounge, but for a lounge at the home airport, I was highly disappointed. It was slightly difficult to find, having to go through a series of hallways. It was just a large room with not enough seating. We had two people and couldn’t find a place to sit. It isn’t really worth your time unless you’re wanting to grab a drink to take with you. It might have been the case that I went to the wrong lounge for a great experience, as there are two in the non-Schengen zone.
We ended up leaving and I found Haribo Airplane gummy snacks, which were a fun treat to end the trip with.
Boarding was slightly chaotic. We had to show our boarding pass to even enter the gate area, as there was a flight to Newark boarding at the same time at the next gate. The space wasn’t large to hold enough passengers for two widebodies, so they had it marked off down the middle to make sure you were heading to the right gate. THat’s probably a great idea.
Austrian Airlines 767 business class cabin & seats
Austrian Airlines business class on the 767 has a total of 26 business class suites. All of them are immediately to the right as you walk in. You can see the SeatGuru map here.
These seats are in a 1-2-1 configuration. The center section alternated with which side was closer to the aisle versus further from the aisle, while sections along the sides alternated between being closer to the aisle and closer to the window. All seats are forward-facing. There are luggage bins above all seats, but the ones above the window seats are a bit lower than luggage bins above the center console. The Austrian logo is up front, and I think it’s quite snazzy and modern.
For this particular flight, we were in seats 3K and 4K on the right side. I took 3K, while my wife was in 4K.
The seats were made of cloth but had a read leather headrest. Directly to my left were the seat controls. They had some preset options (I love the relax option on all flights), as well as the ability to customize where each part is. Additionally, there is the mood light and the ability to just the firmness and have a massage feature. I never seem to feel the differences when I change firmness on any aircraft, but that could just be me.
Going back, there’s a flip-up panel that allows you to turn on the reading light and the do not disturb light, as well as the call button.
Immediately over that is the individual reading light itself, as well as a USB-A plug, a universal plug, and the plug for the headphones.
Continuing on around the seat, you have a shelf to put items, which was closer to the aisle on my aircraft. You can begin to see the age of this aircraft as the tray table button has lost a lot of the paint.
The tray table has to be the most complicated tray table I’ve ever used. It swings around from the shelf by your side and moves upward to lock into place. The joint that causes it to swing around and then move up was unintuitive to use. The flight attendant had to help me a couple of times throughout my flight. To be honest, I think I would still have an issue if I were to have to use it today. I have a flight with Austrian in November aboard their new 787, and I hope they have made it more intuitive.
Across from the shelf was the literature pocket with the safety card and entertainment guide. There is also a water bottle holder.
Directly across from the seat was, of course, the TV monitor.
Right underneath the TV was a foot rest. My feet had plenty of room, with space for me to even lay on my side and curl up for a nap.
There was neither reading lights or individual air controls above the seat. I was disappointed that there were no air vents. However, I did not find the flight to be too hot.
Overall, except for the tray rest, it’s a perfectly fine seat for the flight across the Atlantic.
Austrian Airlines lavatories
There are two lavatories on the left side of the front of the cabin for business class passengers. It was relatively small and no frills, but I was able to stand up, which is always a plus as a tall guy. Lavatories were clean throughout the flight.
Austrian Airlines business class amenities
Sitting at our seat were a pillow, blanket, headphones, and an amenity kit.
The pillow was quite substantial. I love a great pillow like that! The blanket was made of the perfect material to keep me cool.
The headphones were unbranded (that I know of) and were more than adequate.
The amenity kit was quite light for a business class flight. It came with socks, a sleepmask, toothbrush and toothpaste, and chapstick. I only used the chapstick in flight. I added the toothbrush and toothpaste to my guest bathroom stash and put the eye mask in my travel sleep kit as a backup. The amenity kit was added to my amenity kit stash that I use as backups for when I need a small bag like that.
It wasn’t the best amenity kit I’ve received, but, for a daytime flight, it was perfectly fine.
Austrian Airlines business class entertainment and Wi-Fi
The business class entertainment was small, but good. The screen quality was very good. There wasn’t a ton of options, but the options were relatively new. For example, for this February 2024 flight, Oppenheimer was available, which I watched intermittently while reading.
As always, I’m a huge sucker for seeing which cities are highlighted in the inflight map. Why Havana and Colombo? Austrian doesn’t fly there…but they do to Male seasonally, which is good to know!
Wi-Fi was available for purchase. I did not take a picture of the screen, as I did not purchase it. I just watched movies and read the entire time.
Austrian Airlines 767 departure from Vienna
Upon boarding and settling into my seat, a flight attendant came by and greeted me. I was offered mixed nuts and a choice of orange juice and sparkling wine. I took both.
The nuts were not warmed, but a nice touch. The sparkling wine and orange juice were average.
We pushed back and made our way to the runway. While we were on the way to the runway, the safety video was played. This might have been one of the greatest safety videos. The CGI was fantastic. Let me know what you think!
We quickly took off. I admired the view, as I was sad to be ending the trip. It was a great trip!
Austrian Airlines business class lunch service
This flight provided lunch and an end-of-flight snack. You’ll find the food menu for both meals on my flight below.
The drink menu can be found below.
One thing I’ll note about Austrian Airlines that is really cool is that they have an onboard chef. Their soul job is to make sure that every dish is plated appropriately and that every dish is up to standards. I’m sure that they are more flair than substance. However, I do believe that they do indicate to customers that Austrian Airlines is investing in the soft product such as food.
About 20 minutes or so after take-off, flight attendants came around and placed down a tablecloth. They also handed out a warm towel to wipe off your hands.
Salt, pepper, butter, and olive oil were placed on my tray. I also ordered a sparkling water and the bitter lemon drink. I thought the lemon slices in both drinks were a refreshing touch.
Flight attendants then came by with a bread roll, the amuse bouche, and my first selection. The amuse bouche was a roasted vegetable plate. I ordered the leaf salad as my starter. It was light and tasty. I’ll also point out the cool triangle plates. I loved them and considered putting one in my bag…
I then had the soup course, which was a sweet potato coconut soup. That was probably my favorite dish on this flight, but I’m a sucker for a sweet potato and citrus fruit combination in a soup.
Finally, for my main meal, I had filet of pork with cauliflower gratin, ratatouille, and a red pepper sauce. I was surprised when I got two pieces of pork. It was quite tasty, and I ate the whole thing.
For dessert, I had the strawberry mango machiatto and a fruit cup, which was tasty, like every other course I had. I enjoyed this with a glass of dessert wine.
I was pretty full at this point, so I didn’t get the cheese course. Overall, the food was fantastic!
Austrian Airlines business class coffee service
This was probably what I was looking forward to the most. Austrian Airlines is legendarily for providing as close to a Vienna coffee house experience as you can possibly get on a plane. We went to one when we stayed at the Park Hyatt Vienna, and we thought it was a fun experience.
In fact, we looked for this specific flight for a few months so that we could leisurely enjoy coffee while reading and watching movies throughout the day as we headed home.
You can find the coffee menu below. I really appreciated that they spent a whole page of the coffee menu contextualizing the experience.
For this particular flight, I wanted a proper (not a dessert) coffee. I went with the Wiener Eiskaffee. This is a double espresso coffee, served with vanilla ice cream and freshly whipped cream, served in a tall glass. Because there isn’t enough sweetness with the drink, it came with a chocolate.
It did not disappoint. What I loved about it was that I put up my tray table, and the flight attendant served my coffee on a couple tray that I could enjoy at my leisure. It was the absolutely perfect way to end our long trip, leisurely drinking coffee while reading a book. That was easily my favorite part of this flight, and I’m hoping I get to do this again later this year aboard the new 787 (fingers crossed!).
Austrian Airlines 767 business class bed
At this point, I put the bed in relax mode, putting the pillow behind my head and the blanket over my legs. I probably read for about 3 hours, took a nap for an hour and a half or so, and spent a few hours listening to music and just looking out the window.
I really was just looking forward to reading my book, as I was about halfway done through the 5th Harry Potter and was trying to finish it (I just finished up the whole series for the first time the other day).
It was a quiet, leisurely journey. Perfect for the end of the trip, with time to think about all the new experiences we had.
Austrian Airlines business class end-of-flight meal service
Just north of New York City, when we had about an hour and 15 minutes or so, we had our end-of-flight meal service. It was about 2:30PM Eastern time, so does that make it dinner? Not really sure.
For this meal, I had the mozzarella tomato panini with potato chips. I also ordered a vanilla profiterole covered in chocolate, as well as a cup of coffee.
The panini was fine. The hard part about a panini at the end of the flight is that it’s hard to keep crispy, which is how a panini is supposed to be made. I think they did a better job that most airlines, but it’s just hard to do that.
The profiterole was fantastic. I love puff pastry with cream in the middle!
Austrian Airlines arrival in Dulles International Airport (IAD)
We arrived on time and pulled up to our gate with no issues. We were amongst the first to get off the plane, as is expected for business class on an international flight. It’s not a huge deal at Dulles International, as you have to get on the Dulles People Movers anyways to get to immigration.
I did appreciate that the screen popped up saying, “Thank you for flying with us.” It also said, “The charming way to fly.” I absolutely agree with that!
Austrian Airlines service
I thought the service was perfectly fine. Whenever I hit the call button, flight attendants came. Nothing was forgotten, and dinnerware was removed quickly.
I would like to give a shoutout to the flight attendants for being so patient with me as I tried to figure out my tray table. It was such an unintuitive design! Hopefully, the new 787 business class fixes them!
Conclusion
Austrian Airlines business class is my new favorite way to cross the Atlantic. While the seat isn’t cutting edge, it gets the job done. Austrian Airlines truly shines on their soft product, with great food and great service. I look forward to flying with them again!
What do you think of Austrian Airlines 767 business class? Would you fly this product?
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