For the next installment-
I imagine there will not be too many days in my life where I will awaken in Tokyo and fall asleep in Bratislava. This, however, was one of them.
Caught the 9AM Narita Express from Shinagawa to NRT. I recommend Shinagawa as pretty good location in Tokyo for easy access to popular areas as well as excellent airport links to Haneda and Narita, while being typically affordable. There was another notable snowfall during the night, so the trip out to the airport felt like a surreal winter wonderland.
I was excited to be giving Austrian a try. Previous trip reports have left good impressions and the food looked delectable. NRT is always a great place to impulse buy with the leftover yen. Who doesn’t need weird flavored Kit Kats? My bag was already stuffed full of Yatsuhashi from Kyoto. Headed over to the United Club, since it was convenient to my gate and didn’t wander all the way down to the ANA club. Food spread was good for a UC, but I didn’t want to spoil my appetite very much. The club made for some nice plane spotting, too.
Austrian 52
Tokyo NRT- Vienna VIE
D: 12:25
A: 16:15
Boeing 777-200ER
Boarding was on time. First impressions of the cabin were good. Certainly the color scheme/bulkheads can be a feast (or famine) for the eyes, but I enjoyed it. I’m one to err on the side of character to boring monotony. Load today in J was only about 50%. Y looked nearly full. Unremarkable but palatable Duval Leroy Champagne was served.
I was expecting more cramped quarters than the ANA product, and that was true. Still very nice. The PTV/seat/controls were very slick and high tech. There are also convenient seat controls while in the fully flat position. Like ANA, there were convenient storage nooks. I found the sitting position to be suitable to my tastes while dining, and there were nice lounging positions attainable. The air-adjustable firmness of the seat is a nice feature. Unfortunately, it seems the air pump needs to adjust itself every so often which can be disruptive to sleep. The foot cubby is pretty tight, but my window seat wasn’t so bad. I was able to go on my side to sleep, barely. While this seat is a very nice new product that is becoming ubiquitous, it’s least conducive to 777. The window seats in the 2-2-2 rows have pretty awful aisle access. When on the 767, every seat has easy aisle access.
Do&Co neighbor heading to IST
GE90s rocketing us off
Nice views of Northern Honshu
The “chef” springing into action. He came by to take the orders for the main. Sure it’s a little gimmicky to have a “chef”, but I can’t take anything away from the food and presentation, which was a step beyond.
Great menu here. Everything sounded delicious.
Beverage menu was mostly unremarkable, with the usual suspects. (Until the coffee menu... we’ll get there) I stuck with Riesling during the meal, which was nice.
Nice assortment of starters. Eclectic to say the least
Potato leek soup was delicious. Love soups in the air, which usually turn out.
After much deliberation, I went with the goulash. I thought it was perfectly executed. Superb comfort food in the air.
This is what the chicken looked like.
Coffee menus were distributed before dessert:
Then came the decadent dessert course with 2 headliners: apple strudel and Sacher torte, along with some high quality fruit and Beerenauslese late harvest dessert wine.
Yep. That will do..
Or the strudel...
Then we finished things off with a Fiaker
So yeah, I don’t need to tell you this meal was good.
Japan or far east of Russia, I forgot
After lunch, I was able to get a few hours of airplane sleep without being particularly tired.
IFE: The screen was very nice. The controls were good once you got used to the cursor button. Selection was about the same as ANA, decent but not great. Movie selection was broader than TV. There were a lot of old favorites such as Sound of Music (of course) and Home Alone for the holidays. I especially liked the games. There was some nice trivia and that thing where you shoot balls up to connect them to the same color and disappear. What’s that called? Kept me occupied for a few hours.
Crew: Very nice and pleasant. Red. Very red. At least 4 Japanese speakers who were very good. Quite a wide array of age and -um- looks on Austrian. Regrettably, one of them wins a particular Dundie award.
You know who you are.
Some Siberia, being chased by the sunset today
“Now THAT is going to look good on openflights”
Unfortunately the airshow always was updating itself to the shortest possible distance, which defeats the purpose of seeing the actual routing.
Snacks were laid out in the galley, but I was stuffed from the first meal.
The second meal service began a few hours out of Vienna.
This was a very nice second meal. I’m not a smoked salmon fan, but it was decent. The gnocci was great for being on a plane. Just the right amount of food.
Followed by more stylish coffee
Some cabin pics before landing. The large 777 galleys are always nice to stretch out in.
A big surprise on decent was seeing how green Austria was. This is January, mind you. Temperatures had been unseasonably warm until this point. Unfortunately, it got very cold for my visit without any pretty snow.
Welcome to VIE
We touched down around 4PM after flying 11:30. Entire flight was very smooth with almost no chop. Overall, this was a very enjoyable experience which left me very satisfied with Austrian. ^^