Last week, I posed the question of whether I should spend an absolute fortune to fly Air Côte d’Ivoire for a day. As I explained, on my current review trip, I had a couple of extra days in Europe, and one option was to fly the fascinating Air Côte d’Ivoire Airbus A330-900neo between Paris (CDG) and Abidjan (ABJ), one direction in first class, and one direction in business class.
It would’ve been really expensive, but this is an airline that interests me, and in particular, I’m intrigued by the airline having a first class product, since I make it a goal to fly every first class product in the world. Well, I want to provide an explanation for my decision, because you guys provided an absolutely incredible amount of feedback.
In this post:
The four reasons I decided against flying to Côte d’Ivoire
I just shared some initial thoughts on two Paris hotels — SAX Paris, Hilton LXR, and Hotel du Louvre, Hyatt Unbound Collection. As you may have guessed, that means I chose to spend two nights in Paris, rather than taking this trip on Air Côte d’Ivoire.
The question of whether to fly Air Côte d’Ivoire wasn’t just engagement bait, or whatever you’d like to call it. Instead, the feedback is the reason I ultimately decided against that side trip. Specifically, the following points were what swayed me:
- If I’m going to spend a fortune to fly Air Côte d’Ivoire, it would be nice to actually visit the country, and spend a couple of days on the ground in Côte d’Ivoire; based on the rest of my flight schedule, it would’ve been a direct turn this time around, which seems like a shame
- Given the Air Côte d’Ivoire and YouTuber drama, plus my drama with said YouTuber (well, he never released the “OMAAT files,” so maybe former drama?), I felt like this wasn’t the right time to give the airline a fair shake; specifically, I’m expecting that Air Côte d’Ivoire first class will disappoint, and I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire, to said YouTuber’s unrelated “scam” drama
- The Côte d’Ivoire visa processing time would’ve gotten iffy; while the government website says it typically takes two business days, I wondered if it’s typically quite a bit faster, but most feedback I received suggested it does usually take that long
- While Air Côte d’Ivoire is almost certainly a government vanity project, one has to assume that the airline will lower its first class pricing eventually, given how expensive it is in relation to business class, while also being more of a “business class plus” hard product, so maybe it’s worth waiting for some movement there
My Air Côte d’Ivoire and Starlux first class mission remains!
While it won’t happen in 2025, my goal in the first part of 2026 is to fly first class on both Air Côte d’Ivoire and Starlux Airlines. Of all the airlines in the world that offer first class, those are the only two I haven’t flown.
Funny enough, these are both “business class plus” hard products with very steep pricing, no curtains between cabins, no practical way to redeem points, and no way to position creatively to get a good fare. I’d love to see some positive movement there in terms of pricing or redemption opportunities, but I’m not counting on it, unfortunately.
I really struggle with Starlux, because I have two options:
- Starlux sells first class tickets within Asia, which are around $2,500 one-way; it’s the cheapest way to fly the airline in first class, but you also don’t get the full experience
- Starlux first class on transpacific flights costs $8,000+ one-way, and I’ve never paid that much for a ticket, and would certainly prefer not to spend that much, especially on an airline where the hard product just doesn’t impress
But as someone who “gets me” recently pointed out in a message, I’m a bit of a “completist,” so at some point I just have to look at it as an overall investment in completing the goal of having tried every first class product. But still, ugh…
Bottom line
I appreciate all the feedback the OMAAT community provided on my plan to fly Air Côte d’Ivoire first and business class. I absolutely still want to fly with the airline, but this just wasn’t the right time, based on a variety of factors.
It’s funny how Air Côte d’Ivoire and Starlux have so many similarities with their first class products, and they’re also the only two in the world I haven’t flown. I absolutely plan to change that in 2026…
Why were you ok with flying Air Côte d’Ivoire round trip between CDG and ABJ to try their F/J product, but not willing to do the same w/ Starlux?
If you book a SE Asia originating connection RT to the US, Starlux falls to that $5k price point. I think this would be very valuable as you’d get to test both the short haul vs long haul F products, their F product at outstations in...
Why were you ok with flying Air Côte d’Ivoire round trip between CDG and ABJ to try their F/J product, but not willing to do the same w/ Starlux?
If you book a SE Asia originating connection RT to the US, Starlux falls to that $5k price point. I think this would be very valuable as you’d get to test both the short haul vs long haul F products, their F product at outstations in both the US and Asia.
Furthermore, since you seem to be so into Alaska Atmos these days, you can credit a lot of miles back to Atmos as well. Seems like a win-win to me. And Starlux will almost definitely be a vastly better product than Air Côte d’Ivoire. Seems really weird that you say you want to try Starlux F out, but don’t consider these options. $5k for SE Asia RT in Starlux F seems like a great deal to me imo.
When you do go to the Ivory Coast, you really should visit The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro and stay at the weird Hotel President.
The former leader of the country decided to build a new capital city located on the site of his jungle village birthplace, built a huge basilica modeled after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and 5 star hotel. It's a bizarre capital and well worth seeing, it just takes a bit of effort as it's a few hours from Abidjan.
maybe this frees up time for a little l'ambroisie dinner in paris? you'll love it