For the next segment of my quick trip to Paris and Cairo, I flew Ethiopian Airlines’ Airbus A350-900 business class (marketed as ”Cloud Nine”) on the 3hr40min middle of the night flight from Cairo (CAI) to Addis Ababa (ADD). This was my first flight on Ethiopian in many years, so I was excited to give…
Continue reading: Review: Ethiopian Airlines Business Class Airbus A350 (CAI-ADD)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I love how airlines use every opportunity to serve breakfast if it's even remotely reasonable, even when it clearly is the worse choice.
Surely most people on a 2:30 departure will not have just woken up recently and it's the end of their day rather than the beginning. But hey, it's technically the morning so let's do the breakfast. Of course when the opposite happens, and you're at one of those overnights which land late in the afternoon, the logic is reversed - it doesn't matter that it's a lunch/dinner time, passengers have just woken up!
Come to think of which, another airline that’s became infamous for aircraft swaps is one of the world’s top airlines: QR. Somehow Lucky has been very lucky to fly only the Qsuite or, at worst, the Super Diamond (not counting the 787-9) — just imagine the horror of someone who gets the 2-2-2 Minipod on the 777 or even the ancient A330!
Thai Airways has become somewhat better with not swapping aircraft in recent times, though I have still suffered their ancient 777-200ER far more than I’d like. Still, once more 787s and older A330s come on board, the 777-200ERs will start to be on their way out.
That said, given the decidedly non-luxurious state of aviation in Africa, Ethiopian is about as good as it gets: okay but not special. Latin America is somewhat better thanks to LATAM’s very good business class, but none of these are anywhere close to Asia!
Over half the passengers on the ET flight from CAI-ADD have onward connections in Addis on the morning bank flights, and the meal service on those flights is lunch. Therefore, the service on this flight is breakfast. As is the meal service on all single service short hauls arriving on the morning bank into Addis (and the second service on the longhaul arrivals on that bank). You don't want to serve consecutive HLD meals when a majority of your passengers are connecting across the hub bank in the morning.
I recently flew DXB -> ADD -> ZRH as I did not want to fly EgyptAir over CAI (and also got widebodys with Etopian). I was quite happy with seats and service, very friendly crew. What as super strange to me (and I'm confused it is not metioned in the article) is the arrival at ADD. The priority security check was a free-for-all with me waiting ages until I git the currage to go into battle to obtain two of the ellusive bagge baskets and fighting my way into the queue to place them. All in all I enjoyed the airport and lounge (even with some crowding) but I will never forget the security line.
I find flights to/from Africa and Middle East, regardless of what carrier, you've always got at least one person who is trying to self-upgrade. I am not sure how people actually think they're going to pull this off?
Last flight on TK IST-NBO, I witnessed 2 events. First a whole family of 6, the mother basically told her kids "sit here" (in business). They were promptly booted as the J passengers arrived. Then the self-upgrading guy in front of me said he was a high-ranking Kenyan official as his excuse.
Reminds me of TAP Portugal. Basically gives you a good but not great check list of all modern Business class needs for a fraction of the cost. I like it!
One of the worst possible seats for me, with big feet the footwell does force your feet into an uncomfortable bind, thankfully the bulkhead seat next to me was empty and I moved when I saw the foot well is much wider but I think it's only on the middle seats bulkheads.
I understand in older airports the need to use buses but I can't stand when new, fancy airports with hundreds of gates like new Istanbul airport they use plane stands while gates seat empty, a reason enough to avoid TK at all cost.
"Look, Africa is a tricky continent for aviation, and Ethiopian is about as good as it gets..."
No, SA Airlink is as good as it gets. It's not competing at the level of ET in terms of global footpring, but it's currently the best African airline, service-wise, by far at the moment.
What about air Seychelles and Air Austral? Air Seychelles only has small planes but Air Austral has several wide bodies with good and reliable service.
I've logged a bunch of miles on ET over the years. Overall I enjoy flying with them. Plane swaps suck. Especially when they move you from aisle to Window/ middle without knowing. Too many flights lately where wifi was not working. The app is a little wonky too.
I've noticed that Ethiopian Airlines business class award flights have disapeared from United Airlines. It was a good deal at 88,000 miles each way from US to Africa. Too bad.
I always see reasonably good deals (revenue ticket) or enough redemption opportunities from ex-CAI to BKK or ICN... but never felt like pull it off .... nah (Although I do like Ethiopian restaurants in Cairo...haha).
Noticed your comment about the call bell going off all the time @Ben and thought I had to share my take on it. I fly about 150k miles a year on ET, commuting to and from work, and I have noticed the same thing. If you look into economy mid flight you'll notice that the call light is constantly on above like 40% of seats. My view is that it has to do with the fact that there is an entertainment screen 'controller' built into all of the economy arm rests, which means pax accidentally push the call button and the reading light button all the time. This is not only a bit annoying but also means the crew completely disregard the call button as a means of getting their attention in Economy. Not sure if you had the same thing but I figure this is a fleet-wide phenomenon due to the seat design! Keep up the good work 🙂