Thanksgiving 2023 EuroTrip: Part 5-2 (Etihad First Class Part 2: the flight)

With my introduction to Etihad being that lounge, I was pretty unimpressed at this point. However, that started to change as soon as Scott and I turned left and were led to our first class apartments: 3A and 4A, respectively. The immediate impression, of course, was how huge the space was on an airplane scale (39 sq ft). For reference, an economy seat is around 4 sq ft and doesn’t have walls or a bed.

With me for scale:

Promptly after settling in, the flight attendants came by to check if my bags fit under the bench. They barely fit. The flight attendant also offered proactively that she could store them in Business Class if I wanted. I wouldn’t dream of relegating my bags to Business Class while I flew First Class, haha.

Immediately thereafter, she came around to offer a welcome drink. I selected some champagne of course:

The champagne was served with a hot towel and some dates.

The actual seat itself was somehow smaller than I was expecting, which is to say that it was large without being uncomfortably so.

For scale, that’s my iPad on the bench:

The TV was also large, which was definitely necessary given how far away it was. Under the bench, you can also see the bedding.

Waiting on my other arm rest were the menus and a WiFi code.

Some of these dishes look familiar. Anyone know which one I’m thinking of in particular?

Since this was an overnight flight, we’d be served both dinner and breakfast.

And they also had a lounge and grill menu that you could order from any time.

While I understand why they didn’t want us to board too early because boarding economy class did take a long time, this seat was way more exciting than the lounge. And quite simply, we did have more space and way more privacy on the plane than we did on the ground.

All the doors and dividers were open for takeoff and landing. I’ll note that because of the way the wall between 3A and 4A is, the benches/beds are beside each other but don’t become a double bed like on some airlines.

Inside the Etihad branded bag were the take-home goodies, which included slippers, the amenity kit, and pajamas.

As is customary on Etihad, before take-off, there was a pre-departure prayer in Arabic. I recognize that a lot of people are afraid of or don’t like flying, so in a way the airline has formalized what many people do before flights anyway, haha.

After takeoff, service began promptly. I was given a good pour of Bailey’s, as well as some “canapés” to go with it. Since this is only my third airline that I’ve flown proper first class on, I feel like I should do some on-the-fly comparisons. While strictly better than AA’s offering in Flagship First, the only addition was the wasabi peas, which aren’t really my thing by themselves. On a salad though… that’s a different story.

One big perk of First Class products is the ability to dine with a companion. British Airways offers this in First Class on A380s and 777s but not on 787s (which are the only ones I’ve flown). American does also offer this feature on their 777s.

We decided to dine in Scott’s suite.

The table was set for the two of us with a lot of cutlery and bread. I eventually traded my herb bread for Scott’s olive bread.

Interestingly, all of the champagnes on offer in First Class had pinot noir grapes in them, which was not to Scott’s liking. So, he requested the Business Class champagne list, and, unfortunately, they weren’t really to his liking either. So we then had some regular wine instead.

I will note that sitting on the bench was not very comfortable given how long the meal took.

We of course both started with the caviar service. I really liked the plates everything was served on!

The caviar came with the standard accompaniments:

Next came the appetizer course. I ordered the Arabic Mezze and Scott ordered… the lobster tail citrus salad.

Ok, so at this point, I officially owe American Airlines’ Flagship First Class an apology. Scott’s lobster tail dish was basically identical to the one I was served from London to New York about 5 months prior. Now, this one was presented noticeably better, but honestly, it seems like if it’s a good enough dish for Etihad First Class, I have no space to question American Airlines serving it. That said, the mezze option was much more to my taste.

While we were eating dinner, the “lad” in seat 2A was watching videos on his phone without headphones on, which was very obnoxious. At one point, I asked the flight attendant if she might be able to offer the guy in seat 2C some headphones. I’m not sure how she handled the situation with the guy, but we were less disrupted the rest of the meal.

Next came the appetizer cleanser:

Then the main course. I ordered the salmon, and Scott ordered the Laham Mashwi (braised lamb). Scott’s definitely looked more interesting.

None of the desserts actually interested either of us, and we were very full, so we headed back to the lounge to check it out. The lounge was shared with Business Class but was empty (probably because it was a relatively short red-eye).

While we were in the lounge, the flight attendant proactively offered to turn down our apartments so we could sleep whenever we were ready. While in the lounge area, I ordered some of my favorite dessert wine:

When we returned to our apartments, our beds were ready! It was interesting the way the TV swung out for bed mode:

I will note that when you close the doors to the apartment, you can still see through the holes in the door if you specifically need to, but the walls go high enough that you do have some genuine privacy.

Seeing the First Class Apartments will all the doors closed in the middle of the night with mood lighting was awesome. It’s wild to have a single aisle on an A380.

Before bed, I decided to take a shower. The shower offers 5 total minutes of water, which you can turn on and off on demand to extend your shower time. Interesting, taking a shower on the plane was less exciting than I was expecting it to be. I’ve taken showers on trains before, and it really just felt the same as that.

I did try to get some sleep, but at this point, it was only about an hour before we’d be getting ready to land. The bench/bed was extremely hard. Like I think the floor would’ve been more comfortable. I also think I would’ve been better off not even trying to use the bed/sleep in retrospect because I woke up feeling way worse than before. I probably would’ve been ok if I’d just slept in the seat.

I skipped the breakfast service because it had really only been about 90 minutes since I had finished dinner…

But before landing, we got another hot towel and a tiny box of chocolates.

And then finally it was time to say goodbye to my little apartment in the sky.

I was a bit slow in getting all my stuff out because I wasn’t feeling great (and I sent Scott ahead without me), but then I noticed that the flight attendants were stopping anyone from Business Class from using the door until I got off. Which was funny and a bit much, haha.

In summary, this first class flight was everything that I had hoped for it to be, once we got in the air. That’s a sentence I do often say on this blog. The ground service in London was, quite simply, a joke for this type of First Class offering (1/5). The apartment was amazing, but the bench was horrendously uncomfortable in my opinion. I’m going to average Scott and my opinions of the seat to give it a 4.5/5 because I really can’t justify giving it a flat 4/5. The service on the flight was hands-down amazing. Nothing offered in the US can really compare to it (5/5). The food was great, and I came away from the flight very happy with it, especially because I had finally had some airplane caviar. However, after the next flight with Etihad, I became a bit less impressed retrospectively (4/5). I’ll discuss that in the next post. Finally, the TV and movie selection was top notch, but the WiFi was a bit slow at times, which bothered Scott much more than it bothered me (4.5/5). Overall, this flight gets a 19/25, which is a lot worse than I was expecting, but that really just comes down to how atrocious the ground experience was.

This flight was booked as part of the Aeroplan redemption to Cairo. The ticket was complicated enough (and Scott booked it) that I can’t really speak to how many miles this part cost, but I can confirm that I got no points or status credits on any airline from the booking.