An uncharacteristically brutal review: Air Algerie's A330neo business class has decent seats, but the service, food, and amenities are among the worst the author has ever flown.
While I can't say this entirely surprises me (Algeria and Algerians have a dreadful reputation here in France), the product really is comically bad, almost parody-like. The one thing North Africa has going for them should be food, and I was expecting them to deliver on this point at least. Sad.
@ VladG -- I do think "comically bad" sums it up perfectly. I just found the whole experience to border on funny, because it was shortcoming after shortcoming after shortcoming.
Well, the French don’t have such a great reputation in Algeria, either.
As for “North African food,” I would be careful about generalizing too much. Moroccan food is brilliant but bears little relation to Algerian or Tunisian cuisine, which I find bland beyond belief. Then there’s Egyptian food, which is great when it’s Lebanese food.
What did you expect ? lol. Imagine what economy was like
Sorry you suffered but it is entertaining for us!
Given you started from Canada how do they manage to have such poor food? Or is it catered from Algeria? Does the Canadian caterer say, 'yes sure, we can make a really bad meal service with dirty trays especially for your airline?!?'
I almost felt guilty laughing throughout as i read this. But sweet baby Jesus have i laughed. Ben your descriptions are hilarious.
This really is the true definition of taking one for the team (us OMAAT readers).
Imagine what the food and service in economy class is if this is what they offer in business class.
Next time try a comparison of their prison menu. How much worse could that be? Serious street cred was earned for this review.
Welp, that answers the ‘which adventure’ question when Ben said “I'm off on a quick adventure” in yesterday’s Weekly Review post.
“raw dogging”
Third attempt at posting, even changed browsers for this!
As with your Royal Jordanian reviews, I feel that you're being a bit unfair with the airline, not because this is a good service level (it clearly isn't), but because it's quite a short overnight flight and I suspect their regular business class pax wouldn't care a lot about the food or service as they'll have eaten in the lounge and be keen to maximise their sleep onboard.
Perhaps you can challenge yourself to fly them all the way to KUL- that flight's twice as long, it departs early evening and should benefit from hub catering. It might well mean an improvement from comically bad to just about mediocre.
I mean, the same applies to all airlines. Why should these airlines specifically get a pass? In any case, that’s only really a defence if the airline has lower fares in combination, and it does not sound like that’s the case here.
@ Throwawayname -- If only! The cabin was full, and everyone I saw was up for both meals. The thing is, they turn the cabin lights so bright and even announce two hours out how they're going to serve breakfast, so it's kind of hard to sleep through.
Honestly, I would've walked away from the flight with a more favorable impression if they had just said "this is a quiet, no service flight, everyone go to sleep," rather than spending five of the under seven hours just providing the most underwhelming service imaginable.