Egyptair A321 Business Class CAI-MAN (Thanksgiving 2023 EuroTrip: Part 7)

Ok, so this flight is a very sore/touchy subject for Scott and me. We arrived at Cairo airport at around 9 pm for our 12:50 am flight. We were supposed to be flying Emirates First Class from Cairo to Dubai to London.

However, Air Canada had messed up our tickets and so we couldn’t check in for the flight. Scott has a very detailed account on Flyertalk if you want to read about it. In summary, we had to suddenly spend the night at the airport hotel. I was rebooked onto an Egyptair flight in Business Class from Cairo to Manchester (which was my intended destination, not London) that left the next morning. Scott ended up in European-style Business Class to Frankfurt (with a connection in Austria).

I returned to the airport after about 5 hours of sleep and headed to the Egyptair terminal. In Cairo, you have to clear general security before you can go to the check-in counters.

There was a special entrance for Star Alliance Gold members and Business Class passengers.

Once you clear general security, you are at the ticket counters. I checked a bag and then cleared exit passport control. At that point, you’re now just in the terminal, so no additional security screening has happened since the check-in counters.

I made my way to Egyptair’s Gienah Lounge, which I understand to be the biggest one they have. It’s not great.

I stopped to use the restroom inside the lounge to wash my hands before getting some breakfast. The lounge’s restroom was not great.

Since it was the morning, the food offerings were breakfast focused. There were pastries, fruit (with very green bananas), and cereal.

As well as a few additional options. The options weren’t amazing, but they were decent. Definitely nothing compared to what we would’ve had in the Emirates Lounge.

I then situated myself in the main seating area to wait for my flight. The armchairs were decently comfortable, but the attendants did not come around often to clean up, so trash sometimes piled up around the chairs.

Soon, it was time to board the flight. I saw on the boarding pass that the gate closed a full 30 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart, which seemed very early, so I showed up 45 minutes before the flight. And immediately understood why: we had to clear full TSA-style airport security before boarding, which finally made everything make sense.

I took a picture of our A321 and then found a seat in the corner.

They started by boarding Business Class.

Business Class on this A321 was in a 2-2 configuration and had 4 rows. The seats were the same as what you’d find in American Airlines’ Domestic First Class or International Premium Economy.

For a 6 hour flight, these seats are perfectly fine. But are a complete joke compared to Emirates’ First Class.

I had selected seat 11C, which is a very high number because the rows started at row 8.

I will grant Egyptair that these seats are much better than what Lufthansa and British Airways offer on their routes to Cairo. While I haven’t flown them to Egypt, I know that they only offer European-style ‘blocked middle seat’ business class.

Unlike in the US, upgrades to Business Class are not given out for free to status members, so I was hopeful when the seat beside me was empty on the seat map that I’d luck out. Unfortunately 2 of the 4 empty seats in Business Class did go out filled, and I got unlucky.

Normal headphones and an amenity kit were waiting for me at my seat.

They had these cute stickers, which I enjoyed:

We pushed back roughly on time, but our estimated flight time (5:45) was longer than the amount of time the flight was booked off for (5:30). That was particularly unfortunate because we already had boarded and pushed back late. We did end up being in the air for that whole time, which was particularly unfortunate given that this was not Emirates First Class.

Egyptair does not serve alcohol, so instead they have some fun non-alcoholic drinks. I had strawberry juice as a pre-departure beverage.

After takeoff, I was served some warm nuts.

I put my tray table away when I realized that this was not really the start of service as it turned out.

I then had another glass of fruit juice: this one was mango-based.

A full two hours passed according to the time stamps on my phone before the actual meal service began. I had read that the meal service begins with the pilots on Egyptair, and that appeared to be the case on this flight as well. No menus were provided unfortunately. First, we got a table cloth.

Second, we got the tray with three small appetizers. From left to right, these appetizers were a tiny cheese bowl, beet-flavored hummus, and grilled chicken with dips.

Next, they came around with some bread and then the main courses. I was given a choice between chicken and beef and selected the chicken.

It was nice that the main courses were brought out on a cart so we could see what we were ordering. I wish more airlines did this, but I doubt having uncovered food would meet food safety regulations in a lot of countries.

After the meal service came the dessert service, which also had tea and coffee. Everything was served again from a cart, which was, again, very fun.

I had some tea, a tiny piece of cake, and some fruit. The dessert was fine overall.

In summary, comparing this flight to an Emirates First Class experience is obviously not fair in the slightest. It was a huge disappointment to be on this flight compared to Emirates, but this flight is not trying to compete with Emirates even remotely, so I can’t be but so critical of it. The fact that I was able to get a direct flight to Manchester that day was pretty lucky at least. In terms of the ground experience, priority security and the Egyptair lounge get 1/5, since they at least existed. The seats on this plane should probably be more fairly compared to European-style business class or US-style domestic first class seats, but given that Aeroplan considered these only a “one class” downgrade from Emirates’ First Class, they get a 3/5. The service on this flight was extremely friendly when it was actually happening. I’m sure that I could’ve asked for whatever I needed, but I would’ve liked the meal service to not have been so delayed (3/5). The food was decent all things considered. It was on par with European Business Class meals and standard US domestic first class meals (3/5). Finally, the in-flight entertainment was also fine. The seatback TV was good and had a reasonable selection (3/5). Overall, this flight gets a 13/25, which is a pretty low score. However, I think if I had not been expecting to be on Emirates First Class and had actually slept the night before, this flight might’ve gotten a higher score. Everything about the flight really was just fine. But that’s also all it was: fine.

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.