Austrian Airlines To Serve Los Angeles From April 2017

an airplane flying in the sky

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Austrian Airlines has announced that it plans to start up service to Los Angeles from April 2017. This will be Austrian’s 5th non-stop service between Vienna and the US after Chicago, New York (EWR), Miami and Washington and represents the airlines first foray to the West Coast.

Austrian Airlines Flights To Los Angeles

From 10 April 2017 Austrian Airlines will operate the Vienna – Los Angeles route with a 777-200ER aircraft on the following schedule:

OS081 VIE 10:00 – 13:30 LAX
OS082 LAX 15:05 – 12:00+1 day VIE

From 10 April the route will operate 5x/week – Mon, Wed, Thu, Fri & Sat while, from 12 June the route will get an extra flight on Tuesdays taking it up to 6 flights/week.

As things stand this route is currently only set to run through the summer 2017 season but the airline appears to have left open the possibility of making this a year-round route.

Austrian Airlines 777-200ER

The Austrian Airlines 777-200 offers 48 flat-bed Business Class seats and 260 Economy Class seats and there’s good news for travelers in both cabins.

Austrian Business Class is a highly regarded product and offers a cabin layout very similar to what you’ll find on SWISS’ new 777-300 aircraft:

austrian-777-business-class-seat-mapAustrian Airlines 777-200 Business Class seat map

Because of the way the cabin has been designed the number of seats varies from one row to another – it alternates between a 1-2-1 layout and a 2-2-2 layout – so there’s something for both solo travelers and couples traveling together.

austrian-airlines-777-business-class-cabinAustrian Airlines 777 Business Class Cabin

austrian-airlines-business-class-seatsAustrian Airlines 777 Business Class seats

This is definitely one of the better Business Class seats for a flight between Europe and the US and, when you combine that with the reputation Austrian Airlines has for service and food, then this is going to be a very nice option for LA based passengers.

In Economy Class the airline has gone with the 10-across seating we’ve come to expect from most airlines nowadays but, somehow, the seat width doesn’t appear to have been compromised….at least not according to SeatGuru:screen-shot-2016-09-16-at-15-51-54

18.5″ is a very wide Economy Class seat (especially on a 777 with 10-across seating) so I’m not sure if SeatGuru has got the numbers wrong or if this has something to do with the staggered layout of the cabin rows that the seat map shows:

austrian-airlines-economy-seat-mapAustrian Airlines 777 Economy Class seat map

austrian-airlines-777-economy-classAustrian Airlines 777 Economy Class

Award Availability Is Wide Open

Austrian Airlines is part of the Lufthansa Group of companies so it’s also part of the Star Alliance – that means that you can use United Miles to book travel on Austrian.

OneMileAtATime has noticed that award availability on this new route appears to be wide open with as many as 6 Business Class seats available on some flights.

austrian-airlines-award-availability

Per the United Airlines award chart it will cost you 70,000 miles for a one-way Business Class ticket on Star Alliance partners…and that’s not too bad for travel on a product as good as this one.

Bottom Line

New routes are always good news but the news is particularly great when it involves a premium cabin product as good as the one offered by Austrian.

As someone who spends a good deal of time flying between LA and Europe I’m especially happy to have a new non-stop option to choose from. With the reportedly excellent Star Alliance lounge at LAX high on my list of reviews I’d like to do this new route now gives me a second excuse to cheat on OneWorld and try out something new 🙂

Featured Image courtesy of Austrian Airlines via Flickr

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