[AMcWhirter]

End of the road for Bamboo Airlines Long Haul?

Austrian Airlines has one of the oldest long-haul fleet of any national airline in Europe.

Its 767s are, on average, 24 years old. Its 777s are, on average, 23 years old.

As we reported in 2023 Austrian will receive 11 787s to modernise its fleet.

What wasn’t made clear at the time was that these 787s may not be brand new.

The first two 787s are coming from Bamboo Airlines – see the above link to Forum thread – with the remainder coming from Lufthansa mainline.

I say this because Bamboo Airlines and some of the Lufthansa 787s (those which were part of a cancelled order from Hainan Airlines) have a different configuration to the standard Lufthansa Group product.

And the seating, with the exception of new branding, will remain unchanged. This comes as no surprise given today’s cost of airline seating and especially in business class.

Austrian Airlines will receive its first 787 today in Vienna.

Here’s a link to our piece of 2023.

Austrian to take delivery of first Boeing 787-9 in early 2024

2 users thanked author for this post.

jjlasne, sparkyflier

[sparkyflier]

Thanks Alex for this news. Sad to see that Austrian is downgrading from 767 to 787.
I guess this serves as a heads up to fly their 767s before the 787 take over all long haul routes!

1 user thanked author for this post.

cwoodward

[AMcWhirter]

Yes. Readers still have a few months left to sample the existing 767s and 777s in the Austrian fleet.

After delivery today the Austrian technical team, Austrian Technik, will carry out a detailed inspection and so on.

It is reported that, assuming all goes according to plan, the two ex-Bamboo Airways 787s will be deployed on transatlantic routes to New York (June) Chicago (July).

No surprise that these routes were chosen. European airlines find the US to be a key revenue source.

[cwoodward]

Hopefully the B787 re not as bent as the owners of bamboo !

Seriously, it seems like a good deal for Austrian

[AndrewinHK]

Again though with LH Group, inconsistent product offering, a good deal, but one would think the economics of acquiring a newish aircraft that presumably will be in the fleet for decades would warrant installing Austrian seats.

[cwoodward]

Yes agreed Andrew but their current B767 fleet not being exactly the pinacol of comfort these 4 year old 1-2-1 in business with their lie-flat beds(leased) aircraft will be welcomed by Austrians customers. With so few aircraft young readily available this was something of a coup

2 users thanked author for this post.

jjlasne, AndrewinHK

[LetsFlyNow]

@AndrewinHK

I wouldn’t be surprised if these seats ended up being the ‘new’ Austrian business class.

Why? When LH announced their new Allegris (Senses for Swiss) cabins, it was made clear that this was only for the 2 ‘Premium’ airlines of the LH Group (LX+LH). Nothing was mentioned regarding Austrian (or Brussels), the two stepchildren of the LH group.

As mentioned Austrian will be getting the 5 787s that are currently flying with LH. These have the exact same configuration as the 2 ex-Bamboo 787s. These 7 planes were all originally meant to go to Hainan Airlines group which had to scale back on expansion due to financial constraints and hence didn’t pick them up.

Given that OS will now have 7 Planes with the same configuration, it is very probable that the other factory fresh 4 787s will also be fitted with the same seats.

1 user thanked author for this post.

AndrewinHK

[cwoodward]

Possibly, however according to Alex’s post above Austrian are already on record as announcing that:
“The seating, with the exception of new branding, will remain unchanged”

[AMcWhirter]

Of course things could change.

The quote above was from me rather than officially made by Austrian.

I noted that because these 787s which Austrian are to acquire are relatively new aircraft.

With airlines boasting about their “sustainability” let alone the cost of new business class seating I thought that, for the time being, the existing seating would be retained.

Maybe I am mistaken though.

Certainly when checking the 787 seat chart on the Lufthansa website the PDF shows the Hainan configuration.

https://www.lufthansa.com/gb/en/boeing787

1 user thanked author for this post.

cwoodward

[FDOS]

Having had the pleasure of the OS 767, any seats will be better, frankly.

That’s if the 767 turns up, it shrank into a 737 with Y seats and the middle free, one time (not that I flew it, I got off in disgust).

So the 78s are a step in the right direction.

[Author]

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