Austrian Airlines (lack of) Safety On Board

Tags

Air Canada flight 797, Austrian Airlines, exit row seat, safety, safety on board, service

Few days ago I had a chance to watch a documentary about Air Canada flight 797 air crash from June 1983, where some passengers died as a result of fire on board the flight. You can find related Wikipedia article about it here.

One fo the results of this tragic event was that the safety procedures on all flights were changed (the full list of those changes can also be found in the article mentioned above). For me the important ones are (below is copied from the article):

 

• Strong suggestion that passenger instruction in how to open emergency exits become standard practice within the airline industry.^[2]
• Strong recommendation for expedited FAA rule changes mandating that all U.S.-based air carriers install (or improve existing) in-cabin fire safety enhancements, including (but not limited to):
  • Fire-blocking seat materials to limit both the spread of fire and the generation of toxic chemicals through ignition;
  • Emergency track lighting at or near the floor, strong enough to cut through heavy fuel fire smoke;
  • Raised markings on overhead bins indicating the location of exit rows to aid passengers in locating these rows in case of passenger visual impairment (either pre-existing or caused by emergency conditions);
  • Hand-held fire extinguishers using advanced technology extinguishing agents such as Halon.^[1]

 

This struck me as important because on my recent flight from and to Tel Aviv with Austrian Airlines I noticed that all safety seats were empty, since no one wanted to pay additional charge for the leg room those offer. This time though I saw for the first time that flight attendants CHASED PASSENGERS AWAY from those seats after some tried to sit on them after boarding was completed and during the flight. As a reason they gave the “pay for seat” explanation. What’s more, they opened tray tables in front of the seats in order to visibly declare them as off-limits.

I find it – possibly unreasonably – disturbing as I think that in case of any emergency each second is important. The tragedy of the flight 797 has shown that too. If there is no one in the emergency exit row, no one will be able to immediately open the exit doors in case of such emergency. Someone will need to go there (possibly in a cabin filled with smoke), find the right row, and get the door open. This can result in confusion – who should go there etc – and loss of precious time. Maybe I am exaggerating, but I think that Austrian Airlines in hot pursuit of revenue is going too far.

Practices like that backfire (oops, pun not intended), since they lost money on seats if those would be sold for the normal price. Secondly, if you stress good service – not profit – as your overreaching goal, profit will come. Right now Austrian is losing money big time – I wonder when Lufthansa will finally shut it down.

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Duty Free Shopping in Austrian Airlines Flight

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Austrian Airlines, duty-free, EU, in-flight shopping

Recently I flew from Vienna to Thessalonica on an Austrian flight. On some previous flights I noticed an item (electronic) in an on-board Duty Free magazine which I finally decided to buy. But I was told that I cannot. Stewardess told me, that since this is a flight between two EU countries, I cannot buy anything. I was very surprised, since at the airport you can buy anything duty-free, with exception of cigarettes, even if you have a EU flight ticket. Why not on the airplane?

The mystery resolved itself during my return flight. This time stewardess told me, that I cannot buy that item, because Austrian does not carry anymore duty-free items on EU flights. Now that explained everything a bit better, but… why then have the duty-free magazines still on board flights, where you cannot buy anything? Why Austrian is false advertising? There is a sentence in magazine saying that you cannot buy anything on EU flight, but wouldn’t it be better to simply remove the magazines?

Possibly no, as that costs time (and consequently, money). I also presume, that purchases on board were not that popular and goods lying around in some airplane lockers represented value wasted (money tied). Both issues are valid enough, but Austrian, in its typical arrogant way, solved them without real regard for us, passengers. Two better solutions would be to remove duty-free magazines from the planes in EU flights; or negotiate better prices with suppliers, making purchases more attractive – the latter idea could also make purchases in the plane better over land duty-free shops.

Trip To Philippines – The Flight

Tags

Austrian Airlines, Emirates, First Class, flight, travel

Last Saturday it was my first time to fly with Emirates, first time when I flew first class (Emirates have upgraded me – what a pleasant surprise!), and first time I went to Philippines. Not bad for one day, huh? My flight was booked in business, from Vienna through Dubai to Manila. Emirates had a great (young and attentive) service, the flights were really good, whole experience much better that any Lufthansa flight I had, and only a tad better than my recent flight with Turkish airlines. But maybe this upgrade to the first class had something to do with my judgement  🙂 Below pictures were taken with iPhone cam…

My seat in the first class was actually a cubicle – the only downside is that there were no overhead bins, the space you see above was the only one for your luggage or shoes. I had only backpack with me, so no problem 🙂

Here is how the rest of the cabin looked like. Every one cubicle had doors, you could close them and have a bit of privacy.

Approaching airport in Dubai. If you look really closely, you should be able to see the needle of the tallest building… 🙂

As a counterweight to all luxury of Emirates flight, picture above shows the complete meal Austrian Airlines served me on my recent flight from Athens to Vienna… Does not look like much, huh? And it isn’t. Even Greek airlines served a warm meal (on a flight from Munich to Athens, similar duration). Good bye, Austrian, and good riddance.

Turkish Airlines

Tags

air travel, Austrian Airlines, flight, Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines

I have been flying with Lufthansa or Austrian Airlines for at least 10 years, not only on short European hops, but also on longer intercontinental jumps. Both of those airlines were for me, at least until recently, clearly the best in terms of service. Lately though Lufthansa crew became arrogant and abrupt, turning (even business class) experience into a bad dream. Austrian can not be trusted that they will fly on time or fly at all, since they are busy arguing with each other instead of serving their passengers. On top of that food rations are getting smaller and smaller, I bet that soon I will have to bring magnifying glass with me in order to find it on the tray. If I will get the tray, that is.

Of course, since flying is expensive no matter what class or airline you are getting into, we needed to look for alternatives. One of those will be with British Airways, an airline I never liked. I am dreading our test flight with them in October to Vegas…

Another, latest test was with Turkish Airlines from Vienna to Hong Kong. The longer leg, from Istanbul to our destination, was – simply speaking – very good. Flying there was good, flying back even better (we flew business). Seats which turn completely flat and you can really sleep, good food (and a lot of it), great service and young (and especially on the return flight) pretty crew (yeah, I am a guy and I do pay attention to such… things?). I hope we will fly with them again. They truly have overtaken their fellow Star Alliance members in any category. Just have a look at images here.

Lufthansa, wake up. Times are changing. Your conservativeness work now against you, not for you. And your recent purchases (I mean Austrian here) are only dragging you down. Time to do something…

Austrian Airlines again…

Tags

Austrian Airlines, company value, equity, Lufthansa, people, workers

On the 23rd of April I was to board an airplane from Vienna to Larnaca, Cyprus, but I was told that the flight will be delayed due to a union meeting. No one could tell me how long the delay will be, only that the first information will come about half an hour after the original take off time. Eventually we took off 2 hours late. Pilot apologized for being late and he said that the meeting was important, as it was about their future.

I find this arrogant, as it implies that anything pilots or AA staff in general have to say to each other is more important than passengers those same people are supposed to serve. It also means, that the issue to be discussed is not important enough to discuss after work hours. If AA will continue this way, there will not be any need to discuss anything as the people will no longer fly with them. I myself will no longer fly with them to Macau this month, my flight to Vegas in October is already booked with Virgin, not Star Alliance as this usually (every year for last 10 years or so) was the case. Lufthansa, as a parent company, would do well simply letting Austrian go bust – their last year’s result was a loss of over 60 million. This would at least allow for a serious make over, now they just lose customers.

Here I come to the point. That same day I found an article in Financial Times “The waning power of equity ownership”. Author of this article touched the point of difference between the real assets of the company and its market value. For Google, for example, this is 148 billion $ and it represents the value of knowledge the company has, or better said, its people.

Since most of the airlines use the same aircraft, have the same costs, food, airports, etc how come that some make money and others not? Simple – the difference lies in people, from the top to the bottom. Like in any business. Maybe this is something Austrian should consider – the value is not about having people, is about what those people do and how they steer the company. Arrogance is not a good medicine for company trouble, concentrating on why the company exists is – and airline is there to fly passengers, not to have union meetings, however internally important those may be.