Jaunted

Tags: Austrian Airlines / Business Class Travel / Travel Ads / SmartCars / → All Tags

Can Itsy Bitsy Smart Car 'Airplanes' Convince You to Fly Biz Class on Austrian Airlines?

Have you ever flown Austrian Airlines? We haven't because we don't often think of Vienna has the gateway for our European vacations. And usually, we're frantically trying to make the most of our miles accumulated on domestic airlines like American and Continental.

But in an effort to persuade people like us, Austrian Airlines has unveiled its Smart Car "Airplanes" to create awareness about their business class services, calling it the "smart ride to Europe."

The Smart Car "Airplanes" will be cruising throughout New York and Washington, D.C. for the next month (first NYC; then after Labor Day, DC.) As an added bonus the cars will be handing out free bottles of cold water to folks passing by.

more ›

Tags: Austrian Airlines / Airlines / → All Tags

Austrian Airlines Makes a Half Century

We weren't quite sure about Austrian Airlines when they started offering a big brown to passengers, but we've figured out it's just a bad name for a good coffee. So we'll be nice to Austrian Airlines today because the carrier's celebrating its 50th birthday.

The airline has seen a whole heap of changes in that half-century, with initial flights all heading west to destinations like London, Frankfurt and Paris. These days, the focus is on building up flights into central and eastern Europe as well as Russia, and with flights to Riyadh and Jeddah starting in August, the Middle East is a big target area as well.

And in another piece of Austrian Airlines good news, they should move into the new Skylink terminal at Vienna's airport in the summer of 2009. They might not sell big browns there but they should be able to make connection times short and painless. Happy birthday, Austrian Airlines!

Related Stories:
· Austrian Celebrates 50th Anniversary [Business Traveller]
· Gimme a Big Brown, Danke [Jaunted]

[Photo: Guy Flaneur]

Tags: Austrian Airlines / Coffee / Airline Gimmicks / → All Tags

Gimme a Big Brown, Danke

Austrian Airlines already thinks it's pretty special for serving up strudel in its special snack box, and now the press wires are going mad over their new coffee house in the sky concept.

In the tradition of a typical Viennese coffee house, business class passengers now get a choice of 11 Austrian coffees with their strudel (or other dessert of their choosing, but who'd take anything other than strudel?). The Wiener Melange and the Wiener Fiaker sound intriguing enough, but please tell us who wants to drink the Grosser Brauner: "the Big Brown?"

[Photo: Al-Fassam]

Related Stories:
· Austrian Airlines Brings Hot Food to Economy [Opodo]
· Austrian Airlines Introduces Viennese Coffee House in the Air [World Travel Guide]
· A Yodel and a Strudel and You're There [Jaunted]

Tags: Austrian Airlines / Food / Airlines / → All Tags

A Yodel and a Strudel and You're There

Austrian Airlines have got all excited this week about their new "Austrian Snack Box." Their press department's bombarded corners of the web with hype about the meal now being served on all international flights more than 65 minutes long (that precision is something that goes with being German-speakers, we presume).

It's not really surprising to learn that, depending on the time of day, your Austrian Snack Box could include some Austrian pastry delicacies like a nice apple strudel, or later in the day a special beef salad or cold cuts. But what they really say is so special about it is the postcard lid. Yep, this super-specially-designed box has a lid that you can tear off and use as a postcard--at the moment Austrian Airlines will even stick a stamp on it for you for free if you "mail" it on board.

The press machine says passengers are overjoyed with the new deal and call it "delicious, tasty, refined and fresh." What they don't mention is the passengers who just think they'd rather have a bigger meal without the frilly postcard...and the postcard recipients who will wonder why their love letters give off the faint aroma of schnitzel.

[Photo: superciliousness]

Related Stories:
· Something to Write Home About From Austrian [EasierTravel]

Tags: Airlines / Austrian Airlines / Iraq / → All Tags

Airline Report: Fly Austrian to Iraq

Not that it's an obscure route or anything, but Austrian Airlines just announced that the company will finally start flights from Vienna to Iraq in December. The launch had previously been scheduled for March of 2006. The service includes a bi-weekly flight from Vienna to Erbil, in the Kurdistan region. So far, it looks like they'll be flying an Airbus A319 on the route. Using some sample dates in January, we pulled up a ticket price of €933.30 ($1201).

Iraqi Kurdistan announced plans for a new tourism campaign last month, so officials there should be tickled. Marketing representatives hired by the Kurdistan regional government noted to the press that "Westerners walk around freely and there is an active nightlife," and that while the region "might be close" to the war "in miles, it's a lot further from that in reality." Some think that the campaign was politically motivated rather than inspired by a genuine dedication to boosting tourism--Kurdistan has, after all, sought independence from Iraq in the past.

Drop those Euros at your own risk!

[Photo: bees-knees]

Related Stories:
· Austrian Airlines to fly to northern Iraq as first European commercial carrier [IHT]
· Iraqi Kurdistan launches tourism campaign [USAT]
· Kurdistan - The Other Iraq [Official Site]