It’s time to leave Croatia after a most enjoyable 2-week vacation. And I’ll leave the same way I arrived: in business class on Austrian Airlines.

Here is a reminder of my air routing during this vacation:

And the articles related to this trip :

Ticket booking

As explained in my article on my outbound flight, the choice of Austrian was fairly obvious: very good service to Croatia, schedules that suited me and a business class trip for 350 euros in “open jaw” (I didn’t leave from my arrival city), a flexibility that few other airlines could offer me, and at a price not much more expensive than their economy offer!

Check-In and ground experience

As the Sheraton Dubrovnik Riviera Hotel where I was staying was between the city and the airport, it didn’t take me more than 20 minutes to reach the latter. As online check-in was not available, I had allowed myself a safety margin, but it was too much given the time it took to get to the airport.

When I arrived, the check-in counter wasn’t open and the automatic kiosks weren’t working. I’m left to sunbathe outside for a while before the operations begin.

When I re-enter the terminal the check-in queue has formed and is long.

Fortunately, there are only 4 people in the priority queue. It’s quickly my turn and I’m asked for my “health documents”. I wonder why it is necessary to download them in order to provide them in advance.

I’m also informed of the existence of a lounge, which I thought was closed. Good news.

I pass through immigration and security checks at lightning speed: 3 minutes in a priority queue.

The airport is deserted.

So I head for the lounge.

The lounge at Dubrovnik

It’s on the 3rd floor, so it’s a bit of a walk to the boarding gate.

Unsurprisingly, it is home to all the airlines serving the airport (yes…United serves Dubrovnik direct from the USA…).

The lounge is lengthwise and overlooks the gates and runway.

The seats look comfortable and despite the minimalist design it makes no worse impression than other lounges in comparable airports.

There’s a choice of cold drinks and beers.

Wines and spirits. Minimum service, but at least there’s some.

Decent-looking sandwiches wrapped in cellophane.

A hot drinks station. There are also croissants kept warm…it’s 2pm and I don’t want to know how long they’ve been there.

Let’s just say we’ve seen better, but we’ve also seen a lot worse.

In the end, the sandwiches were acceptable, the seats comfortable and my wait went well.

The plane lands in front of me at 2.17pm... it will be difficult to board at 2.20pm as planned.

I eventually made my way to the departure lounge…

Boarding

And there in an empty airport I see a very long queue.

In fact, boarding passes are checked before entering a waiting area. And, of course, no priority lanes here.

It’s a bumpy, messy ride until I finally reach the room. No more available seats.

We’re far from being ready to board, as the Little Red Riding Hoods (the Austrian crew) are also waiting…

The crew boards at 2:48pm…no chance of us leaving at 3pm, and of course no delay is announced…

Finally the doors open, and since the checks were carried out at the entrance to the lounge, there’s no one to regulate the flow of passengers who rush into the jetway with no respect for boarding priorities. It’s all very low-cost. But I finally get on board.

The Austrian A320 business cabin

Unsurprisingly, I find the Austrian medium-haul cabin with the “old” seats.

So this is my seat. The middle seat will of course be neutralized.

The seat is comfortable, but nothing more. Legroom is fine, but I find I have a little less room than on Lufthansa, for example.

The aircraft is fully booked and there are 3 rows of business on this flight. Logical for a “leisure” destination.

At 3.15pm boarding is complete. On Austrian, as with the Lufthansa Group in general, even if you board late, you always board fast.

Another Austrian aircraft is parked near us…

A Croatia Airlines Dash-8 comes in between? Coming from Zagreb, I think.

It is time to leave.

The flight and the service

After take-off, a first turn gives me the chance to see the mountains surrounding Dubrovnik and the Adriatic Sea one last time.

While waiting for the service, I take advantage of the neutralized seat to install my “personal IFE”. My neighbor does the same.

10 minutes after takeoff, our snack is brought to us. 3 small pieces of sandwich and a chocolate cake.

Really minimalist and nothing like the service you’d get on a Paris-Vienna flight. The sandwiches were mediocre, and the cake not too bad. It’s true that the flight is short and the destination is labelled “leisure”, but that’s a bit disappointing when you consider what the airline can do on other routes.

On the other hand, I’m offered drinks 3 times. Some should learn from this instead of hiding in the galley after the service.

The service will be rounded off with a coffee and, as always at Austrian, an excellent chocolate.

But it’s already time to prepare for landing.

The staff

I can’t blame Austrian for the cacophony at the boarding gate, they’re not the ones managing it.

In flight, efficient and professional crew, available, always offering a refill. Very good for such a short flight.

Landing and arrival in Vienna

Landing with nothing to report, we arrive in sight of the terminal.

We park next to two “brothers”.

I look at my watch: I’ve got a “normal” connection time, but the ups and downs of the outbound flight and the time wasted going through the main security checks again before switching from Shengen to non-Shengen remains in my memory… if I go through the same thing today, it could become complicated. And since we took off 30 minutes late…

I make my way down the endless corridor to the connection area, and the rest…you’ll see it in the review of my last flight.

Bottom line

A rather chaotic ground journey and boarding, a late flight and a barely decent service, even taking into account the short duration of the flight.

Austrian has accustomed me to better. A decent flight, but nothing more.

Articles similaires

Paris-Vienna in Business Class on Austrian: excellent service Vienna-Split in business class on Austrian: disappointing Vienna-Paris in business class on Austrian: catastrophic connection Review : Austrian Economy – Vienna-Budapest, Bombardier Dash8 Zagreb-Dubrovnik on Croatia Airlines in Business Class: fair, but no more than that. Austrian Business Lounge (Non Schengen) in Vienna (T3 G)