After reviewing all the great advice on this website we have decided to fly with Air Berlin from Vienna to Paris rather than take the overnight train. I am finding the website for Air Berlin a bit hard to manage and my concern is that the reservation may not be done right. Does anyone know if the tickets could be purchased for this while in Europe or are these planes generally too booked up to risk reserving at the last minute? Thanks!

The main problem with Air Berlin and low-cost carriers is that last-minute flights usually range from quite expensive to very expensive. I doubt all the seats would be booked up, though. Have you received email confirmation? Has your credit card been charged? What leads you to think you have a problem?

nrpsydoc,

First of all, you need to book ASAP to get the lowest fares, they almost always rise as seats are filled and the departure date gets closer (except for very rare fare sales).

Secondly, flights between Vienna and Paris are actually operated by Fly Niki, a great little airline jointly owned by Air Berlin and Niki Lauda, the retired formula 1 racer (and founder of Lauda Air, which he subsequently sold).

You can book also directly on Fly Niki's website:
http://www.flyniki.co.uk/home.php
which is just a different front end, as the airline uses Air Berlin's IT platform.

It's an extremely simple website to use - can't imagine you would have any difficulty. But if you prefer to call, just dial the international access code (011 in the US) followed by:
49 30 410 21 59 03
and book by phone - they claim to be open around the clock.

Hope this helps,
Andre

Thanks so much. The reason I'm afraid I may encounter a problem is that the English version of the website is a bit funky with the flight dates section. I will try the Niki website or else call directly. Appreciate all the information.

just went on the niki site. is it possible that they do not fly from vienna to paris in april? or is it that those fares are not yet available?

"...the English version of the website is a bit funky with the flight dates section."

Explain this please....the site is set up to accept dates European style (DD-you choose the month spelled out for you-YY)...exacxtly what sort of difficulty are you having? Something is wrong with this picture but I am convinced we can help you correct it.

I went back in and understand now how they group the dates (i.e. october-march). my date, which is april 2006 is not there. not sure if this is because there are no flights in april or because they are not showing fares yet for that period. they may be only up to the end of march. anyone know?

nrpsydoc,

So far, only seats for the winter schedule (till the end of March) have been released for sale, with the exception of flights to Mallorca (per Fly Niki press release of October 11th).

So I would expect the other summer schedule flights to be released in the course of the next month - just keep checking the site every few days until the flights become available.

By booking this early, you should get a great price on your flight. The lowest fare for that route in March appears to be EUR 47 all in!

Hope this helps,
Andre

thanks! this helps quite a bit. i'll just sit tight for a bit more.