Egyptair

Never again! Onboard Staff not very friendly or helpful in general but that was not the half of it. When arriving at Johannesburg to check in for our return flight to London we were informed our flight had been cancelled and that the Friday flights had been non operational for months. Not once were we informed of this and when complaining were told they had sent us an e-mail a week prior to return departure! We were on holiday and in the African bush - unlikely to check e-mails on a daily basis! No one apologised nor accepted responsibility for mistake and refused to try help us get home on time. Does Star Alliance not mean anything?

The worst service ever. I'm waiting for my refund (because of their cancellation) for more than 2 months now. It's really difficult - when I try to call them it takes more than 1 hour just to get connected or connected at all. I would not recommend this airline to anyone.

Cairo to London economy codeshare with BMI. Not allowed to take airport bought water on board. Sat near the back of an older A321 and whole area had a terrible smell of urine. Seats very uncomfortable. Only 2 drinks served (very small cups of 7-up) during whole flight. Food disgusting and cabin staff not at all interested. No information at all from the flightdeck.

DAR-CAI-FRA-CPH. Small aircraft good service no alcohol. Check-in in Dar pleasant though complained could not check in my luggage beyond Copenhagen though with another Star Alliance airline. However the airline granted me an untitled free lounge access in Dar instead which was a fair deal. DAR-CAI on time food served fast. The flight is only 4 hours at night. Thus it was pleasant to see 2 sandwiches were instantly handed out upon departure as dinner and then very shortly after came the breakfast. That rendered the options to sleep onboard to half an hour before descent or – to be waken up and have the breakfast in the middle of the night. Special meals taken care of. Missed my LH flight to Copenhagen as they had only granted 50 minutes. Was rebooked to a flight within 2 hours later. Arrived in CPH but had to go out of transit to capture my luggage for onward flights.

DXB-CAI-LHR as part of a reward ticket in Business Class. DXB excellent shared lounge with a few snacks a few drinks and internet. Having read the reviews made sure I had some cereal fruit and yoghurt at 4am before the flight and liberated a can of lager for lunch on the CAI-LHR sector. A substantial breakfast served very tasty and one of the best airline meals I have had. Music choice poor but good range of films seats comfortable and stretched out fully. Landed in Cairo about 20 mins late and what seemed a long way to the transfer desk. Here there was chaos no real lines people pushing in claiming leaving flights and although there was a Business Class desk this was dealing with what appeared to be everybody. Given an invite to the lounge after being asked if I wanted a smoking or non smoking lounge. I had intended to have a shower but lounge was busy and the flight being late and chaos at the transfer desk meant that there was only 45 mins there. Inflight entertainment was same as previous sector which was fine as I finished watched the film I fell asleep. Unnecessary stale cheese sandwich offered shortly after take off as well as great amenity kit. I have to say contents better than LH and LX business class kits - more useful contents. Fantastic lunch offering served 2 hours before landing at Heathrow with amazing in flight service. Landed on time and bags on carousel before me which is almost unheard of at LHR T3. Overall very good service comfortable aircraft especially B777 from CAI to LHR. The only thing that let it down was the transfer process at DXB and CAI.

CPH-CAI-DAR return. Tickets heavily discounted good value. Check in with automats in CPH airport waste of time as boarding cards and luggage tags are only provided. Special food good 2 options for hot meal given on all routes for other passengers. No alcoholic drinks free or for purchase. Quite disappointing for several passengers. A lot of soft drinks and juices provided. In Cairo a lot of waiting taxi-ing remote parking of aircraft within the airport caused 1 hour unnecessary arrival delay.

Flew out on A330 to Luxor - not good. We were in row 34. The entertainment was appalling small screens over the centre could not be seen properly (3m away at an angle) and the choice of audio/music for Western ears was unbelievably bad. The pre-film entertainment seemed drivel and there was no choice of film of course. At meal time there was no choice all the chicken was gone fish only. "Would you like a drink sir?" "Yes please Orange juice." "Sorry no Orange juice." Seats seemed fine with good leg room. Return from Cairo in a Boeing 777-300 row 32. Individual back seat screens not a wide choice of viewing but passable for 5 hrs. Audio/music unbelievably bad. Lunch time was handed a meal "What is it?" "Fish." "No thank you." You have to have it there is nothing else left!" Seats were good. Will never fly Egypt Air again.

Rome to Cairo and Cairo to London. Both flights were quite pleasant meals were average economy standard meals. B737-800 from Rome and B777-300 to London. B777 had a more up to date inflight entertainment system but I didn't find a lot that appealed to me. Newspapers (English and Arabic ) offered on both flights. The flight attendants were ok if somewhat distant. One in particular on the London flight was an expert in looking busy but actually doing very little. During the newspaper offering service her interpretation of service was pushing the trolley down the aisle past expectant passengers without glancing up at anyone as she was too busy reading the paper herself.

A mixed bag describes my recent experience on flights between Bangkok/Cairo and Cairo/JFK. As another writer recently bemoaned the aircraft used on the Bangkok/Cairo sector was truly ancient. I do not honestly recall having riden an airliner that looked as worn as that used on this route. I too rode in Business Class yet felt like a sardine in coach class given the paltry amount of leg room available. A complete disaster was averted by fairly decent (but not great) meals and a hard working flight crew. The trip from Cairo/JFK was a totally different story. This time we were on a new 777 with lie flat seats. We had a very caring crew that kept on feeding us meal after meal. Both flights were relatively on time and both captains kept passengers reasonably informed.

LHR to JNB return. LHR to Cairo on new aircraft clean good inflight entertainment staff very good and food not too bad. Cairo to JNB was on an older aircraft with the old TV on the wall service was pretty good though. Would have preferred the newer planes on the longer leg of the journey. Return trip was the same JNB-CAI an older plane and CAI-LHR new plane! Expectations were too high in the first place so not bad at all.