⭐ Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Pros
- A plated meal on a one hour flight is impressive and the food was good
- The Austrian lounge in Vienna has good food
- Intra-Europe business class seats are not good, but the 2-2 layout was still better than the more common 3-3
Cons
- No seat back entertainment and no wifi
- Boarding at the remote stand was somewhat chaotic
- 2-2 seats is still better than 3-3, but it’s still a bad business class layout
Booking
This flight was the third – and final – leg of my outbound trip to Sarajevo. I booked the business trip on an Air Canada ticket via our corporate travel agent. The total business class airfare for the round trip was $6095 with this particular segment operated by Austrian Airways costing just under $500.
Airport Experience
I had a few hours to spend in Vienna and spent most of it in the Austrian Airways lounge (once I located it). The lounge was quite large and not to be confused with the much smaller satellite lounge located near the gates with flights to the US. The lounge featured a hot breakfast buffet which I took advantage of having slept through breakfast on my prior flight. The food was good – I was particularly fond of the buttery spaetzle – but if I had one quibble it was that there were lounge attendants serving all of the hot items (the cold buffet was self serve). I guess it should be viewed as an added service and more sanitary, but I would just rather serve myself. Due to the language barrier, I ended up with far more scrambled eggs than I wanted – I wanted more spaetzle!
Not being familiar with the Vienna airport, I gave myself plenty of time to get to my gate. As it turned out it was about five minutes away so I arrived way too early. The flight boarded from a remote stand so we were bused out on the tarmac and boarded the small plane via the aircraft’s stairs.
Aircraft & Cabin
The Embraer 195 is configured in a 2-2 layout through the whole fuselage. The size of business class is dependent on how many passengers are booked in business class as there is no difference in the seats themselves. All seats have 29 inches of pitch and are 18 inches wide – so pretty small. I was seated in 1A so the bulkhead which gave me some extra leg room.
There were no predeparture drinks and boarding at the remote stand meant that everyone boarded at the same time. While there were no drinks, there were wet naps distributed!
Seat
Business class on intra-Europe flights really isn’t great as the seats are the same throughout the plane. The only difference is that in the 2-2 layout, if you’re in business class there is no one in the seat next to you. Not all that helpful if you’re flying in business class with family, but I appreciated the extra space. And this is still better than the more common 3-3 layout on European airlines where the middle seat is just blocked out. That feels far smaller so this was at least an upgrade on that common intra-Europe business class layout. Regardless, this was a short 1 hour flight so it didn’t really matter.
In-Flight Entertainment & Connectivity
There was no seat back entertainment and no wifi, so download your entertainment before hand. Not a big deal on a short flight, but could be annoying on a longer flight.
Food & Drink
Despite being a very short flight, I was impressed that a cold lunch was served on this flight. The meal consisted of a quinoa salad with chunks of feta cheese, sweet potatoes and broccoli. The somewhat odd combination was actually quite good and was a nice light bite to have on the quick flight. The lunch came with a tiramisu that was also good even though tiramisu is not my favorite dessert.
Service
The service was professional and courteous, but most importantly they served a meal on an hour flight and it didn’t feel at all rushed.
Arrival Experience
Sarajevo’s airport is small and easy to navigate. I was in a car on my way to my hotel about 25 minutes after touchdown including clearing immigration. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Sarajevo and the most immediate impression was that the physical scars of the war from 30 years ago are still very much present on buildings and the landscape generally.