Review: Cairo Airport Lounge Terminal 2

that's not a buffet, that's a pastry shop... jesus

can't be good for anybody's piping

Lucky wrote: "which involves talking to immigration and then bribing a guy to personally drive you to the other terminal."

So how much did you bribe the guy?

Egypt's Airport look better now that the Muslim Brotherhood/Facebook/Google terrorists are in jail.

Instant coffee and carbs galore...so very tempting...NOT

MasterCard has a Lounge?

This looks like dining at The Ritz compared with the lounges in terminal 1

+1 to Paulo. Pretty much anything would be an improvement to T1!

Loved your comment on posterior cleaning.

Luckily I was wondering what you you would do if your EgyptAir flight was significantly delayed and you missed your connection on Royal Jordanians separate ticket. Do you purchase travel insurance or rely on your credit cards?

Does anyone know why the Munich airport logo is at one of the lounge signages?

As a Cairo resident/expat, I feel quite nostalgic about T1. I usually fly out of T1 mostly traveling to the Gulf (QR F, EY F/J, Gulf Air J). Actually I am still quite fond of T1 (and its lounge) and personally I don’t feel any particular need to change terminal. Lounge buffet offering looks pretty same with that in T1 (so-called) First class lounge. Btw looks like EY A346 (with F) in CAI route is replaced by A332 (no F), is it a temporary or permanent change? In any case, CAI now has a chance to receive QR or EK A80? 😉

Hmm bribing an airport guard for the purposes of a trip report. Is that a violation of your Foreign Corruption Act.

@747always

The facilitating-payments exception to the FCPA provides an exemption for payments to foreign officials "the purpose of which is to expedite or to secure the performance of a routine governmental action by a foreign official." 15 U.S.C § 78dd-1(b).

In Egypt nothing works without bribing. That's culture.

@Lucky / anybody - would you say that T2 reduces the need to use the Ahlan VIP Service? I've got two one-night stopovers in Cairo next month having never been previously. Having read about T1 and T3 I was fully sold on using the Ahlan service. However, I now see that T2 looks much more orderly and that is the terminal I will be using. What do you reckon? To Ahlan, or not to Ahlan? Thanks.

There is a very large Saudia lounge upstairs, above the general lounge in T2. It doesn't require the silly pass through security again and is fantastic. Great food and very quiet- huge difference to the mess in the other lounge. The distances to cover in new T2 are quite large and I find they may have 20-30 immigration counters for departure and arrival, but still only staff them with 2 or perhaps 3 agents.

I wouldn't bother with Ahlan service if using T2. It is a simple, well sign-posted terminal. You now need to pay 10 or 20LE for a trolley at the luggage area, which is a pain for those arriving without small EGP bills.

I didn't mind using T1, small terminal with a few gates meant I was able to arrive late- no need to waste time with the sad lounge. The long walks and poor staffing of security and immigration at T2 means heading to the airport much earlier for me.

@John That's interesting. Who can use the Saudia lounge? When I'm there for departures next I'll have a BA business class ticket and a Priority Pass. Will either get me in?

I much preferred T1 to T3. Not having access to business class lounges, I loved the Starbucks with the comfy chairs. Hated the food area at T3. It was miserable and expensive. However being able to remember the old T2 (my first experience of an Egyptian airport) I am sure the improvement is remarkable.

There's no need to bribe anyone to get an airside transfer from one terminal to another at Cairo Airport. The "official" process may feel very disorganised and involves waiting in a small transit area without your passport until someone comes from your departing airline to print/validate your boarding pass. So while you may have sped-up the process, it's certainly not mandatory to pay a bribe to do this.

I travel through Cairo Airport every month or two and have never been solicited for a bribe by any officials there.

There are a multitude of metal detectors, but sadly that's replicated throughout Egypt. At the airport, officials are desperate to pass foreign checks on the level of security so I imagine their approach is the more the better!

Thanks for the trip report - it's good to get a view of the main lounge in T2!

Sadly ...This new terminal is quickly becoming a victim of slack management. Just months old, the place is filthy - dirt everywhere, escalators gunked up for months, rabid cat strolling around the duty free, carpet stains, sofas falling apart in the lounge, fallen over lounge rollup boards, black marble with dirty mop streaks, stashed of cigarette butts in the washroom. For a place as nice (and much needed) as this, you'd think they'd damn well take care of it. Idle staff are all around but too lazy to take care of it.

Don't worry, the "no smoking" signs will be all tarred-up by the end of the month.

Here's to hoping that this is a marked improvement over EVERYTHING at CAI. CAI, the only airport where I was pushed by a taxi tout from baggage claim into a taxi (not into the taxi, but into the door).

The place looks deserted.
The pastry shop is offensive.
And, the impunity with which the airport authorities can get away with not having a working transit system so you have to bribe your way from one terminal to another is disgraceful and so is smug Lucky's gloating.

Okay, as someone who grew up in that part of the world, I have to clarify this one thing you mentioned about cleaning the posterior by hosing as opposed to wiping. I grew up doing just that. In fact, it is far superior to wiping. We do not make our bathroom floors wet by doing so. It is possible to, very very easily hose without getting a drop of water on the floor. There are also modern toilets with built in bidet jets that are immovable and thus are not possible to hose anything. The misconception that cleaning requires washing down the whole bathroom is exactly that, a misconception. But people are disgusting, and I don’t know why.

I just had THE WORST macchiato in the world for 50EGP at segafredo in terminal 2 gate 3.
Highly recommend you don't even get close to it!!
PS writing this here because this coffee place is not only unable to make good coffee, but also doesn't have a place to review it!