Travel

Austrian Launches High-End Business Class on Shorter Routes

posted: 18 June 2008 08:48 pm ET

: Austrian Airlines is launching enhanced business-class service on 3-to-6-hour flights from Vienna to the Middle East and Central Asia. Its aim is to make its new 'Premium Service' nearly equivalent to the business-class service Austrian offers on its long-haul Boeing 777-200ERs (one is seen here) and 767-300ERs. Credit: Austrian Airlines

In a move it says is in response to customer demand, Austrian Airlines is introducing new, enhanced business-class cabins on short-to-medium-haul flights from its Vienna hub to key business destinations in the Middle East and Central Asia from July 15.

The new business-class service, which Austrian calls 'Premium Service,' will replace the existing business-class cabins in the narrowbody Airbus A320s with which Austrian serves the Middle East and Central Asia.

Austrian's initiative aims to provide on flights of 3 to 6 hours a business-class service product intended to go a long way towards emulating the high comfort and service standards that business-class passengers have become used to experiencing on long-haul flights.

As such, it represents a key element of Austrian's network strategy to build at Vienna a business-travel hub where long-haul passengers from North America and short-haul passengers from Western Europe can connect rapidly to flights serving a large number of business destinations in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.

Each Premium Service A320 cabin will feature 24 new seats made by Recaro, perhaps best known for its top-end sports and racing car seats. The Premium Service seats will be arranged in six rows of two-by-two seating. Each seat will feature 45-inch seat pitch, foot rests and massage function.

Austrian will provide Premium Service passengers with personal video players featuring multiple movie, TV and other programming choices, as well as special language and content features specific to each route. Passengers also will have the use of high-quality Sennheiser noise-reduction headphones.

Additionally, gourmet cuisine prepared by Vienna caterer Do & Co, which provides the ingredients for the meals that Austrian's in-flight chefs prepare in its long-haul business-class cabins, will be served to Premium Service A320 passengers on fine porcelain. The UK-based airline-rating firm Skytrax, whose ratings are regarded internationally as the most reliable indicators of airline service quality, recently ranked Austrian's long-haul business-class catering as the best in the world.

In its Premium Service cabins, Austrian will serve food keyed to the cultural traditions of the destinations: Middle East-style appetizers and four-course meals combining Austrian and Asian influences. It also will offer aperitif service, fine wines, an enhanced selection of fruit juices and non-alcoholic drinks, and Arabian and Austrian specialty coffees and teas.

The airline will launch its Premium Service product on July 15 on flights to Syria's capital Damascus and to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. By the end of July the new service will be in place on Austrian's flights to Cairo and Tehran, and by the end of September it will feature on the airline's flights to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, Dubai, and Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Both of the Saudi Arabia routes will be new: Austrian is launching both in August.

Paul Pavlik, Austrian Airlines' general manager for The Americas, said the airline will introduce its Premium Service product on more routes in 2009, when it is due to take delivery of two additional A320s it has on order.

Austrian Airlines is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and Herbert Felber, director of the airline's Commercial Passenger Division for Southeast Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, said "it is no coincidence" that 2008 sees Austrian begin service to its 50th destination in Eastern Europe and Central Asia: Mostar in Croatia. Other new 2008 destinations in these regions will include Sochi and Nizhny Novgorod in Russia and Baia Mare in Romania, and Felber said more new destinations in these key regions will soon follow.