EgyptAir 798
Vienna (VIE) – Cairo (CAI)
Saturday, June 30
Depart: 3:30PM
Arrive: 6:50PM
Duration: 3hr20min
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
Seat: 12K (Business Class)
I boarded through the forward door, where I was greeted by a flight attendant and a security officer (or Egyptian air marshal, whatever you prefer to call them) at the door.
I apologize in advance for not getting a full cabin picture. Since I saw there were two security officers onboard I didn’t want to get yelled at, because it gets much tougher to get any pictures after you’re told not to take them. I think I also had some level of PTSD after my TAAG Angola flight.
EgyptAir’s 737 business class is massive, I think the biggest I’ve ever seen on a 737 on any airline. There were a total of 24 seats spread across six rows in a 2-2 configuration. Even though this 737 was only about five years old, it felt quite dated to me.
EgyptAir 737 business class cabin
The legroom at these seats was significantly better than you’d find in domestic first class within the US, for example. SeatGuru suggests the seat pitch is 48″ — that seems like a bit much to me, though it might not be that far off.
EgyptAir business class seats 737
EgyptAir business class seats 737
I had assigned myself seat 12K, the window seat on the right side in the second to last row of business class.
Underneath the center armrest were headphone jacks and 110v outlets (though there were no USB outlets).
EgyptAir business class power outlets
The tray table folded out from the side armrest, and could be folded in half.
EgyptAir business class tray table
Each seat had a legrest, which went up just a little bit.
EgyptAir business class seat footrest 737
The seat recline and footrest had to manually be controlled with a button. I always find it to be a bit of a pain to raise the footrest with a button, since you typically have to pull on the footrest while pushing the button.
EgyptAir business class seat recline 737
Each seat had a personal television, and the entertainment controller was underneath the center armrest.
EgyptAir business class entertainment controls 737
Waiting at my seat upon boarding was a pillow and blanket. The pillow was on the small side, while the blanket was fleece, which I don’t generally love on a plane. Neither felt particularly clean, as I doubt they cleaned them between flights.
EgyptAir business class pillow & blanket
About 15 minutes after boarding a flight attendant passed through the cabin with a warm towel.
EgyptAir business class warm towel
Then about five minutes later I was offered headphones, a cold bottle of water, and a pre-departure drink, with the choice between apple juice and mango juice.
EgyptAir business class pre-departure drink, bottled water, and headphones
By 3:35PM the door closed, and business class was half full, with the seat next to me empty (economy was completely full). At that point the safety video and travel prayer were played throughout the cabin. I found the use of sound effects in EgyptAir’s safety video to be really annoying, as it kept beeping like an alarm, almost like an overspeed warning in the cockpit of a plane.
EgyptAir 737 business class cabin
There were two things I found interesting during the taxi out. First of all, passengers were advised that electronics had to be turned off completely. No, not just in airplane mode, but off. There aren’t many airlines where that’s the case anymore.
Second of all, I found it interesting that the two security officers were seated in economy. I feel like on most national airlines with employees flying as passengers, the rule is just that they can take whatever the best available seat is, so that’s quite a bit of discipline for the airline.
We started our taxi at 3:40PM.
Taxiing Vienna Airport
Less than five minutes later we were cleared for takeoff on runway 29. We were only a little bit more than halfway through the safety video when we took off, and we were passing through 10,000 feet by the time the video was done. Yow.
Taxiing Vienna Airport
View after takeoff from Vienna
The views on the climb out were beautiful, as you’d expect.
View after takeoff from Vienna
The seatbelt sign stayed on for quite a while, despite a smooth ride. About 20 minutes after takeoff the captain made his welcome aboard announcement, and informed us of our flight time of 2hr40min, and our cruising attitude of 37,000 feet.
Around this time the crew closed the curtains between cabins, and then distributed magazines and newspapers.
EgyptAir 737 business class cabin
The meal service began shortly after that, starting with tablecloths being distributed.
EgyptAir business class table setting
There were no menus, but rather I was presented a tray with the appetizer, salad, cheese, and bread. The appetizer included what I believe was bresaola, along with tomatoes and mozzarella. Then the salad had cherry tomatoes and shaved carrots.
EgyptAir business class meal
I ordered a sparkling water to drink, but was served club soda.
EgyptAir business class drink
About 10 minutes after the first tray was brought out, the crew passed through the cabin with a trolley containing the main courses. They were simply described as chicken or lamb. I selected the chicken, which was tough, though the sauce was quite nice.
EgyptAir business class meal
Trays were quickly cleared, and about 10 minutes later I was asked if I wanted dessert, which was an apple strudel. It was tasty (though not especially easy to eat with the plastic spoon), and I had some tea to go along with it.
EgyptAir business class dessert & tea
The meal was done just over an hour into the flight. I’d say the service was fast and efficient, though not especially friendly. There must have been at least six flight attendants on this 737, not including the security officers, and three of them were working business class. So trays were all brought out and cleared quickly. But beyond that there wasn’t much charm to the service, unfortunately.
After the meal I checked out the lavatory located at the front of the cabin, which was fairly basic, and didn’t have much in the way of amenities.
EgyptAir 737 business class lavatory
EgyptAir 737 business class lavatory amenities
I then checked out the entertainment system.
EgyptAir business class entertainment
There were a total of 24 Western movies, and only five sitcoms. So the selection was alright, but not extensive.
EgyptAir business class entertainment
I usually struggle to sleep in anything but a flat bed (this isn’t specific to planes, but in general), though to my surprise I managed to snooze for about an hour. Before I knew it we were starting our descent towards Cairo, with about 30 minutes remaining.
Airshow enroute to Cairo
Airshow enroute to Cairo
Next to my seat the flight attendants had left a landing card and some packaged cookies.
EgyptAir business class landing card & cookies
Around this time the seatbelt sign was turned on, and to my surprise they were very strict about telling people to return to their seats and sit down. Usually airlines turn on the seatbelt sign early but don’t enforce it for a while, but this was different.
On the descent they played a “welcome to Egypt” video.
View approaching Cairo
Cairo is such a sprawling city, so as usual the views on approach were fascinating. We ended up touching down at Cairo Airport at 6:45PM.
View approaching Cairo
View approaching Cairo
View approaching Cairo
There was quite a bit of clapping on landing, which isn’t that unusual for a flight to/from Cairo, in my experience.
Taxiing Cairo Airport
We had a beautiful sunset as we taxied in. We were taxiing really fast, though it was quite a long taxi until we arrived at our remote stand.
Beautiful sunset Cairo Airport
Beautiful sunset Cairo Airport
We eventually parked at a remote stand by 6:55PM.
Arrival stand Cairo Airport
They had a separate bus for business class passengers, so we made it to the terminal pretty quickly.
EgyptAir 737 Cairo Airport
EgyptAir 737 business class bottom line
EgyptAir offers a solid hard product on their short-haul fleet, especially when you consider that many European airlines operate regionally configured planes to/from Cairo, which feature standard economy seats with a blocked middle as “business class.”
So in that sense, these were among the more comfortable seats I’ve seen on a 737.
The soft product on EgyptAir was acceptable but not great. The food was edible and service was professional enough, but nothing “wowed” me. I’d fly EgyptAir again — I wouldn’t seek them out, but also wouldn’t avoid them.
If you’ve flown EgyptAir’s 737 business class, what was your experience like?
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