Ethiopian Airlines

✅ Verified Review | Addis Ababa to London. A contrast to my flight out, this time around the food was absolutely delicious and there was lots of it! Two full meals plus two rounds of warm drinks. Cabin Crew were nice but spoke no English even for safety briefings. IFE was the same boring selection of bland American rubbish as the flight out. The plane was clean although the toilets were in a bit of a state halfway through the 7 hour flight.

✅ Verified Review | London to Addis Ababa. The food was inedible, meatballs in a gloopy tomato sauce with pasta tubes. The crew were friendly enough but just doing a job. English announcements (I encountered this on domestic flights and my return too) appeared to be someone reading and transliterating from Amharic into a language they don't speak, which was hilarious on occasion. The IFE was boring, packed full of American rubbish. Literally every single comedy on offer was American for some reason. The flight was more or less on time.

✅ Verified Review | Riyadh to Johannesburg via Addis Ababa. I booked a flight with Attar travels and paid cash for my ticket. On arrival at the airport in Riyadh I should in the line at the counter from 12 midnight waiting for check-in till 3.30am. No one showed up to check us in or explain anything to us. Because we continued to wait till after 3.30am (flight departure time), security asked us to move outside with our luggage. No one was explaining if there was a technical problem or flight cancellation or just a delay. No one from Ethiopian airlines was at the airport to assist with any queries. It turned out to be that this flight was delayed five times for the day. After numerous enquiries it was discovered that Ethiopian airlines was removing illegal immigrants from Saudi Arabia on flights that we had paid for. Eventually when they decided to check us in, they issued me with incorrect boarding passes and I ended up walking from one terminal to the next to try and correct this, until I missed my flight. I was told to wait for the next nights check-in at 12 and see the manager who would be able to assist me. So considering I already waited about 12 hours, I waited for the manager who refused to help anyone. There were a lot of people with similar problems. The manager told us to go to the Ethiopian office in Riyadh at 10am the next day to have new tickets reissued to us. So I was desperate and did so. On arrival I was greeted by more than 50 customers and only one officer to help us. Having already wasted two days at the airport, I decide this was enough and booked a flight on another airline and flew home to South Africa the next day. I have never experienced anything so horrifying in my entire life before. Not a soul can offer you an explaination or any reassurance, leave food or water or a place to rest and can you imagine having not slept in more than 24 hours. It was a disasterous occurrence that I wish never to experience again. To date I have contacted Ethiopian airlines customer services and compensation for this disastrous episode.

✅ Verified Review | Ethiopian is a very poor airline. Boarding in Nairobi was disorganized with no priority for Star Alliance Gold passengers. The plane looked tired and faded despite being a B737 with Sky Interior. The food was the absolute worst I've tasted on a plane: smelly, badly reheated and poorly plated with sauce dripping on the table. Arrival in Addis is a mess, with non-English speaking staff everywhere and poor signage. Avoid this airline at all costs.

✅ Verified Review | Johannesburg to Tel Aviv via Addis Ababa. I was quite disappointed with the airline as a whole. They had sent me to the wrong boarding gate that was clearly printed on my boarding pass, which only later did I realise that they changed the gate without informing any one. The aircraft was not clean, there no was soap and toilet paper in most of the bathrooms. The aircraft was kept at a very low temperature and when I asked for blankets, they said that they don't have any. The service was poor, and they often took time to answer requests.

✅ Verified Review | Los Angeles to Windhoek via Addis Ababa. This was my worst travel experience ever. Firstly, my baggage was left behind at Addis and it was only received two days after arrival without any apology. The quality of food on flights out and inbound was shockingly poor. In terms of drinks served, besides the juices and soft drinks, the only available drinks were one red and one white wine. No beer or any other alcoholic beverages were available. The one toned music that was played on board irritated me to the hilt. Check in at Addis Ababa the most chaotic I have experienced. The cabin crew was very friendly and helpful.

✅ Verified Review | Addis Ababa to Paris. Ethiopian is a combination of the best and worst. The Boeing 787 from Addis Ababa to Paris was fairly new, with good lie flat seats and a clean cabin. The IFE was working, for once. Very nice cabin staff, very helpful and professional. On the negative side, Addis Ababa airport is still one of the worst in the world, with chaos and dirt everywhere. The lounges are only slightly better than in a US domestic airport and Ethiopian ground staff yell at passengers and rush them through the gates all the time. The inflight catering is stale and poorly presented, far from business class standards, despite a recent revamp of the menus and plating. Ethiopian is an average airline that takes you from A to B, but do not expect a top notch inflight experience.

✅ Verified Review | Bangkok to Accra return via Addis Ababa. Good airline, very generous with toilet kits, food standard but nothing to write about, good Ethiopian wines and good coffee. Clean aircraft, comfortable seats, large choice of movies, nice blankets. Service was very good, very attentive but the flights were empty at 50 to 60% in business. All four flights were on time. A negative point with Ethiopian Airlines is that they are very restrictive on miles awards: I ended up getting zero miles. I accept their prices are quite low, but they could at least give mileage equivalent to economy class.

✅ Verified Review | Singapore to Nairobi via Addis Ababa. At the airport, the queue was long and the wait was long. The flight was delayed for about an hour but we managed to make it on time to Addis Ababa Bole. The plane was clean and service was good. The food was delicious and they gave amenities such as eye mask, toothbrush/paste and socks. The journey was comfortable and pleasant. However, at Nairobi my luggage was not there so we had to file a missing luggage report which took an hour. The counter staff informed that there are 3 remaining flights from Ethiopia to Nairobi and For the next few days, I have been checking online on whether the luggage was located but the status was 'Tracing continues' which was bad news. I only received my luggage 4 days later which was quite disruptive to my plans. Although this was an unfortunate event, I was overall quite pleased with the way the staff handled the situation. On my return flight, the flight from Nairobi to Addis Ababa was delayed for 2 hours. This caused many passengers who had connecting flights in Ethiopia to miss their flights. Passengers were told to go to various counters with no one at the counters. I was lucky enough to catch my flight. However, the information on the board directed me to go to Gate 13. At Gate 13, we were then informed that it was at Gate 4 and many of us had to run to the other end of the airport. One lady politely told the ground staff that there could be quite a number of people still queueing at Gate 13 and something needs to be done so that these people wouldn't miss their flights but she was brushed off with a nonchalant attitude. Overall, the plane ride was smooth. However, there needs to be a huge improvement in ground staff service.

✅ Verified Review | Worst airline I have ever flown! We were delayed for 4 hours with no communication from ground staff. We were merely told to sit down every time we wanted to know why we were waiting. No access to even a drop of drinking water. The ground staff were extremely rude and would walk away while you were still talking to them. The food on the aircraft was disgusting, and I ended up not eating. The aircrafts are dirty and old with no inflight entertainment. This is the 3rd time in a row that they have lost my bags (I travel with them every 2 months) not by choice but my company books us on these flights. I received zero assistance regarding my bags, no phone calls or emails get answered and I'm told to go check every time an aircraft lands if my bags arrived. After a lengthy delay not even the crew could tell us why we were delayed (surely you should know as crew why you are taking off 4 hours late). Very unprofessional, very poor service and poor quality. Definitely do not recommend travelling with them unless you feel like sitting for lengthy periods waiting at airports not drinking even a glass of water, like people being rude to you, not eating your entire trip and feel like living off the bare minimum for a week because they loose you bag.