If I had to sum up this flight I’d just say, who cares about an older seat on an older plane,
just give me more of that food please! Hi there, my name is Kevin. This channel came from a love
of traveling, a love of the full process and the journey itself. I feature airline trip reports and
high end hotel reviews from all over the world. My reviews aren’t sponsored by airlines or hotels so
you can be sure to get my unbiased opinion. Am I an expert? You can decide. Am I fair? Yea, I am.
Let’s get into it. Welcome to Addis Ababa and good morning. I just arrived from
Rome and I’m now making my way to the Sheba Cloud Nine Business Class lounge.
If you’d like to know the exact fare that I paid or my next five videos in queue,
please check out the description below.
The lounge appeared to be a bit busy at the front desk but once inside it wasn’t the case.
Immediately inside to the left was a space for traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremonies,
though I didn’t notice any on my visit to the lounge- but you can get it in multiple other
parts of the airport if you’re interested. The lounge was- and I don’t mean this in a
good way or a bad way really- it was exactly as I expected. I think the design could have been a
bit better thought out but overall it provided a variety of areas for sitting- but there weren’t
many options that looked too comfortable if you had a long layover. I’ll note when I arrived it
was a little less than half full. By the time I left, I was sharing my table with someone else.
Now time for everyone’s favorite moment of PR. As Ethiopian Airways surely didn’t hand
over this ticket for free, that means you- who ever you may be- are the sponsor of this
video. In addition to watching, clicking that thumbs up button and subscribing is a great way
to support the channel and it’ll cost you a grand total of $0. My Patreon and Venmo details are
also in the description below. A big ‘ol thanks in advance.
The food in general was plentiful and as you’d expect, the local options were good
and the continental options were not so much. They weren’t bad, just super bland across the board.
They weren’t kidding.
Here’s all of the hot options of offer. By far the best was the last dish, which I believe was
a version of Tibs Firfir because of the Injera in it- but if I’m wrong, please let me know in
the comments. Injera if you weren’t familiar is the spongy pancake like sourdough bread
that is a staple of Ethiopian cuisine, serving both as the primary starch and the utensil.
Heading to the gate, I couldn’t help but gaze into this A350s eyes for a
bit. Originally this flight was supposed to be operated by one,
but the aircraft type changed around six times before they settled on today's 777-200LR.
To wrap up the Ethiopian story I started in the last trip report, they currently have 128
passenger aircraft in their fleet, 56 of which are wide body aircraft, including 777-300,
777-200, A350-900 with -1000 on their way as well as both the -8 and -9 variants of the 787,
they also have a further 32 aircraft on order as well as 13 cargo only aircraft.
By the number of passengers carried, destinations served, fleet size and revenue,
Ethiopian is Africa’s largest carrier and is currently towards the end of their Vision
2025 campaign which is seeing them expand their wings and venture into other regional carriers.
Beyond Addis Ababa they have secondary hubs in Togo and Malawi which serves them well in
Lome to connect to their, let’s say cousin of an airline ASKY. With ASKY and the Guinean government
they are reported to be forming Guinea Airlines soon. They also have a 49% stake in Malawian
Airlines and a 45% stake in the rebirth of Zambia Airways. You can’t say they aren’t working hard.
Boarding was setup with designated lanes and was very
organized. In 2018, the Ethiopian Government announced a program to begin privatizing
some businesses, this airline being one of them- though the government would maintain
a majority stake. Those plans were put on hold though in 2020 due to the Pandemic.
The airline achieved a profit every year from 2008 until the pandemic hit and in that same
time tripled their number of employees, increased passengers served six fold, increased their fleet
count from 35 to 126 and most impressively increased their yearly profit 14 fold.
Our 777 today is 11 years old and in the past months has been doing mostly regional
African routes with the occasional China and European service thrown in.
Let’s take a look at today’s stats, shall we? We’d be pushing back 8 minutes behind schedule and
heading up to 38000 feet for our five hour flight south, also arriving 8 minute behind schedule.
I made my way on board and turned left into this four row cabin.
Since seat maps online are rarely accurate these days, I unfortunately got a seat with
a missing window, but no worries, there were still three others- one benefit of this layout.
The cabin as 28 lie flat seats in a 2 3 2 layout which means there is that dreaded
middle seat in business class. Note that as I mentioned row 4 is missing a window
but otherwise its a pretty straight forward product and all seats are near identical.
With their distinctive fixed and curvy arm outer arm rests,
you’ll find these seats on a whole bunch of airlines. From Air China A330s, to LOT 787s,
to Turkish A330s and 777s, Air India 787s and 777s… the list goes on.
The seats are showing their age due to the technology that incorporated into them,
but otherwise, the seats were in very good condition and extremely clean.
Under the foot rest ahead is a cavernous compartment for your carry on and under your
armrest there is a universal outlet, USB, remote and water bottle holder.
The armrest itself also rises to serve as a bit of a privacy barrier when the seat is flat.
Seat adjustments were intuitive and I told you it was a deep cubby.
The headphones, pillow and blanket were all the same as on my last flight. The head phones are
better than I expected, the pillow firm and nicely sized and the blanked functional but scratchy.
Between the monitors were cubbies to store the head phones as well.
Hot towels were handed out and then the crew went through the cabin serving pre departure drinks,
always led by one crew on each flight in the traditional Ethiopian dress.
I was a bit groggy and perhaps delirious because I took orange juice, which I hate.
We pushed back and had a 10 minute taxi to the runway,
passing countless Ethiopian aircraft on the apron.
We’d be taking off to the northeast before heading south to well,
South Africa. The spool up and take off are coming up next- along with
a bit of light reading for those of you that usually fast forward.
As we flew past Lake Turkana on the Kenyan border the service began and I had no idea what I was in
store for. I started out with my favorite vintage served alongside these biscuits that I can’t quite
put my finger on. THey were really good, but they weren’t sweet- or salty- they were just… biscuity.
If you know what they’re called, please leave it in the comments below, genuinely curious.
Here’s the full menu. Note that the red price tags of the non-Ethiopian wines are current US
retail prices for the relevant wines. Tables were set from a cart and the
starter and side salad were served. Both were good, but had a very United 2017 feel to it.
Then came, what was the best thing- or well things- I’ve ever had on a plane.
I knew Ethiopian was known for their food on flights originating in Addis and they
certainly did not disappoint. All was served off of the trolly- something that I do enjoy seeing.
Ok, I’m gonna go from top right to bottom left and I’ll stick with the english names. First
up we have the Spicy Chicken stew, below that was the Spicy Minced Beef Stew and then the
Split peas stew with turmeric. To the left of that was the stew mixed with Inerja and
then finally we had the sauteed kale. Of course it was all served on top of and with Inerja and
more was available if necessary. I didn’t have a favorite, it was all just really really good.
When I lived in New York I had a very good Ethiopian restaurant near my apartment and
this brought me right back. I think it’s time to book a proper trip to Ethiopia.
And then to my shock, I was asked what I wanted for my main course.
I thought, as I think everyone thought, that you would be choosing between the Ethiopian menu or
the western menu- but no, you could have both. But physically, I couldn’t. But somehow there
was room for a banana cake and a cup of coffee- after all I had another flight after this one.
The same assortment of movies were on offer as my last flight,
though on a much older system which could have been a bit more responsive.
Similar to my last flight the bathrooms were kept clean throughout and stocked with some essentials.
The amenity kit was also the same as the last flight- though this time cherry red.
I’ll say the same as last time. I love branded airline stuff and literally
everything inside was branded so for that, I loved it. But, they are very cheap feeling
kits. As we crossed into
South African airspace we began our descent and left these beautiful blue skies behind.
We’d be approaching the massive city of Johannesburg from the
north before pulling a U-ey and landing from the south.
Unfortunately it was a big bowl of hazy soup.
Similar to deep South American routes, long haul aircraft tend to spend almost all day on
the ground so that the flights are timed to be overnight in both directions. This being
one of the primary reasons why flights between North and deep South American
as well as Europe and South Africa have always been disproportionately expensive.
One last view of our Ethiopian bird and then I caught a glimpse of my ride out
of South Africa. You’ll catch those Singapore videos coming out two weeks after this video.
I’m going to go clear immigration and drop my bags for my last flight of the day to Cape
Town on South African, which is my next video coming up. Let’s head into the Flip Flop Score.
As I’ve said a few times already, the food was incredible- but overall the
service and experience in general was relatively pretty great as well. I’d
love to fly Ethiopian again- if I could nail down one of their newer business class seats.
I’ll see you next time on a shocking little flight, shocking in a good way.