Video | Austrian Airlines 767-300 – International Business Class

Airline: Austrian Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 767-300
Row:  2
Class: International Business

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Austrian Airlines is introducing these new fully lie-flat seats into their long-haul business class cabins  aboard Boeing 767 and 777 aircraft. During the transition you’ll experience either this or their older business seating as seen in our earlier review.

Seat(s): Where long-haul comfort in the 8-10 hours category is concerned, these Austrian Airlines fully lie-flat seats are pretty comfortable. The cushioning and flat-factor measure up to today’s international standard in business class. When in the full “sleep” position your legs extend into the wide space under the seat in front of you. If the cabin isn’t unreasonably warm (as on our flight), snoozing should be a breeze.

In this set of two center seats, one comes with a nice, large console to your left and a smaller, center console to your right. The other seat shares the center console and has a small, economy sized armrest on the other side. While it’s nice to be the one to have the extra large console, it’s much easier to access the aisle on the other side.

The touch-controller lets you customize your comfort, not unlike the popular “Sleep-number” beds we hear so much about. While there’s no number to choose, you get to select how hard or soft your cushion is. If that doesn’t do it for you, there’s a massage function to distract you.

Little features that you might like are that the magazine and “stuff” holders are smartly placed. Nothing is in the way, hard to reach, or injects itself into your personal space.

Tech/Connectivity: Directly over your shoulder is a multi-nation power port and a USB charger port combining with yet ANOTHER USB port attached to your personal TV. Bonus.

Your Personal TV comes with a small but decent selection of movies from Pay-Per-View-age Hollywood blockbusters to modern Euro-favorites. TV shows and videos come in single episodes, including one of the show “30 Rock” that we’ve seen aboard most of our international flights over the last 4-5 years. Mix it with a small handful of games (similar to what you should get for free on your smartphone) and a digital copy of the Austrian Airlines Duty-Free catalog and that’s it. The moving map didn’t work on our flight. Boo.

Food: If the carnivore in you opts for the filet of beef (or “Filet vom Rind”), the sesame soya chutney should keep your 30r+K foot palate awake. A little rich but it had good flavor. The better half tried the Chicken Koi Soi with coconut chili sauce and was pleased enough to say it was good. tried the chiraz with my meal and didn’t like it. But I might just not like Chiraz.

The befores and afters were good too with one service promptly after another so that the trans-atlantic sleepers could nod-off quickly. Post-meal “Vienna-style coffee House” service kept me up to write these thoughts well into the night.

Service: The “Flying Chef” chef comes out in their best Sesame Street Baker garb before the flight to ask what you’d like for a  main course and pre-arrival meal. For us, this might have been better appreciated after we had put our luggage away and settled in. Otherwise the crew was very friendly, even turning down the heat mid flight when it got so hot that I had shed my fancy business class sweater and started fanning myself with safety cards.

Rating: 4 “hops” (of 5).

How we got em’: Miles! With the help of the PointsPros we snagged these seats (along with our return flight) with US Airways Dividend Miles. How many miles you use depends on your destination but US Airways for the time being has a few great redemption opportunities with Star Alliance partners like Austrian.