En Route - EgyptAir experience ...

I flew EgyptAir to Cairo and before hopping onto the plane, I had a lot of preconceived ideas about how EgyptAir would be. Many of the reviews I read re: EgyptAir were bad, I mean really really bad! So bad, I was tempted to pay four times as much for a direct flight on another airline, but that would be wasteful. So instead, I flew with EgyptAir and it didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would (at least not worth paying 4x as much for!).






Here are a few online reviews I found about EgyptAir.

• One star service rating


• From NYC to Cairo, bathrooms are unkept and dirty (I guess on a 11-12 hour flight – you would expect that, right? No wait a minute, even my 15 hour Cathay Pacific flights to Hong Kong are clean).
  
• Food was horrible


• Airline ticketing of your plane ticket in the US is a long process

My review of EgyptAir's Flight and Service

• Probably the most annoying thing about EgyptAir was purchasing the ticket. If you live in New York, I would highly recommend reserving your ticket online and then going straight to the airline ticketing office to make payment (45th street and 6th avenue, I believe). Or else, you'll have to face the wrath of the "bad telephone lines" at EgyptAir's booking/ticketing office. Just to give you a glimpse of the horror I went through -- In total, I spent more than two hours booking my ticket on the phone (probably 15 minutes including wait time) and then the rest trying to pay for the ticket via the ticketing hotline. Lets just say I was in for a rude awakening -- i called the ticketing agent four to five times and each call grew more frustrating as I was asked to be put on hold, then forgotten; or picked up and then hung up on; or the best one yet – put on hold, then picked up, and then connected with someone else that was waiting for a ticketing agent! Oh, and the fun doesn't stop there, but I won't bore you with the details. Just trust me when I say its worthwhile to go directly to the ticketing office to pay for your ticket. There was no wait, just four people sitting there on the phone answering people’s calls (btw, did I tell you those four people handle all of North America’s EgyptAir flights? Yes, that explains the long hold times!). The transaction to pay at the ticket office took less than 5 minutes! p.s. you can book your tickets via Orbitz or some other travel site ... but when I booked my ticket the prices were about $200 higher than purchasing directly through EgyptAir.
  
• Btw, while at the Egypt Air office, they mentioned that their phone lines were not working correctly (duh, i could have told them that!) – but apparently the phone system automatically hangs up on people after a certain amount of holding time. The ticket agents are fully aware of it and have informed management, but to their surprise, management has not fixed it over the last year!

Ok, back to the flight and how it compared to the review.

• Toilets. Toilets were not as bad as I read about and was like any other long-distance flight.
  
• Food. Tolerable and as expected. High caloric intake with not much flavor. Do not order the beef - it was disgusting. My neighbor had the fish and said it was good. Also, do not expect to get any snacks during flight. Just bring your own.
  
• Seats were old, but due to wear, it was broken in - so slightly more comfortable. Not that cramped in the seats, but I’m 5’3 and medium build.
  
• Service was nothing to rave home about – they came when you called them, they delivered food at the right hours. Do not expect service with a smile.
  
• Poor Flight Communication. Our flight was re-rerouted to Sharm El Sheikh due to a sandstorm in Cairo .... but our pilots decided not to inform its passengers until after we landed in the new airport, which was a hour later. You can imagine the guests were not too happy about this. Picture on the left is of everyone standing around the plane, waiting for the pilot to announce that we're heading back to Cairo.
  

• Overall, EgyptAir wasn't as bad as all the reviews made it out to be (except the ticketing portion). I made it safely to Cairo, so I should be happy I lived to share it with everyone. :D