Ethiopian Airlines

✅ Trip Verified | Although this is an 787, one of the newer aircrafts of Ethiopian airlines, the maintenance and the cleanliness is a disgrace. Service is OK, crew weren't enthusiastic, but at least got the job done. Seats are OK, considered it's 3x3x3. Many seats have malfunctioned entertainment systems. The meals were so so. The toilet is not kept clean and in a sorrowful state. All the windows on the left side of the plane failed to darken, causing passengers on that side suffering from too much glare form the sunlight, many had to use their pillow to block the window, which was funny to see. Lucky for me this is only a 2 hour flight. The plane touched down in HK airport very roughly with a loud thug and a huge bump, which startled and frightened all of us. For safety and hygiene reasons, I won't fly with them again.

Not Verified | This was the worst airline I have travelled long distance. Neither flight was I able to sit together with my partner (all together we had 4 flights). We had to sit separately. The seats were broken. The seats in the last row were absolutely ruined, full of springs, on the way back my seat was not fixed - I could remove seating area. I also could not lean back my seat so for 5 hours I needed to sit straight up, sitting between two strong men who took up even 1/4 of my space from each side - it was the same on 2 flights. The seating area is narrow, not comfortable. One plane did not have entertainment so they say we can watch it on our smart phones but it did not work. The food was not good, they ran out of white wine. Stewardesses were not as kind as other airlines. Overall I hope I would never fly with this company again.

Not Verified | My dad, sister, uncle and I are traveling to Harare and had a layover in Addis Ababa. We arrived at the airport just fine after a 12 hour flight and were in line to board our connecting flight when we realized we misplaced my sister’s passport. We were not able to board. Once we found her passport we were trying to book with the same flight the following day and the man at the customer service desk had an attitude as soon as he saw us and ignored us. He tried to charge us $300 each for switching the flight because he was clearly frustrated we missed it. Another staff went out of her way to check on us and confirm we found the passport. She then helped us get our flight switched without the ridiculous penalty fee that the rude customer employee was trying to charge for no reason. She is an amazing employee who helped us when we needed it most!

✅ Trip Verified | Milan to Accra via Addis Ababa. I have been waiting for compensation for 4 months and the status is always "pending airline approval".  And it’s clear they won’t do anything about it. 

✅ Trip Verified | 4 months later and no refund. Do not use this airline. You can lose your money. They constantly change the date of your booked flights and even cancel your flight and rebook it without the passengers consent. They don't answer calls, emails or respond on their chatbot. They cancelled my flight without a reason so I requested a refund and they Charged me a Cancellation Fee and I am still waiting for a refund. Don't be tempted by their cheaper flight fees, its not worth it. Its stressful dealing with them with all the uncertainty of sudden changes.

Not Verified | I used the airline App to purchase a ticket one month before my travels from the United States to Ethiopia and was able to reserve a specific seat at the same time. I reserved seat 50L because of my high blood pressure condition. I needed to be seated away from any active passengers to ensure I would be able to have enough sleep which was necessary due to my medical condition. On the day of my travel to Ethiopia I went to check in and discovered my seat was changed from 50L to 13B which was next to children and was in the middle. I spoke with your ticketing agent at the airport who was not willing to assist me. I then spoke to a Manager who told me they are not selling seats but are selling tickets and that seat reservations made in advance didn’t really matter. I was almost crying because the airline staff were very rude and not willing to assist me at all. I feel they were calling me a liar telling me that I had not reserved seat 50L. Another passenger who overheard my conversation with your Manager gave me her seat which helped with my situation. Once I arrived in Ethiopia I went to the Addis Ababa office Which is the one in Addis Ababa to speak with someone concerning the negative experience I had with my seat reservation. Your staff member took my statement and I was told by her that I would receive an email containing the report your staff member had written. As of today, I have not received an email. I then asked her for assistance with my seat reservation for my return flight. She confirmed seat 50L was reserved for me and apologized for the negative experience I had on my flight to Ethiopia. Three days prior to my return flight back to the United States, I checked to confirm once again that I was seated in seat 50L. I then discovered that my seat reservation had been changed to seat 27B. I was really upset and when I contacted your airline I was told my seat had changed due to a change in the aircraft for the return flight. I asked why your airline does not send out an email when they change a passengers seat reservation, the agent on the phone for your airline told me that the best seat is always given to a Crew member. I was completely was shocked to hear that. I went to the Ethiopian Airlines office again to fix my seat reservation to what your agent had reserved for me. I spent three days of my vacation going from one office to another office to resolve my seat reservation problem as your App was giving me a system error. My negative experience with Ethiopia Airlines makes it less likely that I will use your airline for my travels to Ethiopia. I feel your management team needs additional training in customer service and your reservation system needs to be looked at so that your customers are alerted via email when their seat reservation has been changed. My experience with Ethiopia Airlines was not a pleasant one to say the least.

✅ Trip Verified | Pity, because it had all started very well: modern, clean aircrafts, very good inflight service, competitive prices, but one can truly evaluate any company by the way they will handle a problem: Ethiopian is one of the few airlines offering to buy extra seats in order to enjoy extra space and I was very happy to be able to have the whole row for myself for as little as an extra 195 US dollars for a night flight, but once in the plane, the two, booked and paid for, seats were occupied by other passengers. The hostesses said there was nothing they could do, although they could have moved those persons to other empty seats or even upgrade me and simply said I should write to customer service. All my efforts have remained hopeless ever since. Never again

Not Verified | It's such a shame because in December I had paid a fee to change my ticket and now I can't change it again apparently even If I offer to pay the change fee. All other airlines let passengers change their tickets a minimum of two times, but I guess you want to give out bad experiences to everyone who tries to book with you. It's unacceptable that you expected me to fly last year during a time when borders were not even fully operating and you would not even let me change the destination so that I could at least fly somewhere where COVID restrictions were better. You only gave me a voucher to use within 2021 as if we were not in the middle of a global pandemic. This specific ticket I had booked with 3 other friends of mine, everyone received a refund from their airline except me and I had been battling with this case for two years now. You should at least have a policy that allows you to change your ticket if it's of a significant amount, which mine was. This is just extremely bad customer service and it's definitely sad that this image is what represents this airline. Thanks for not helping and thanks for overcharging.

✅ Trip Verified | Having flown on Ethiopian Airlines number of times before I knew what to expect. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that the A350 had its latest business seats which were fairly standard although hiding the remote control in a cupboard did not seem to make much sense. As I arrived, despite only half the seats being occupied at that point, all of the overhead bins occupied and many of them were larger than the size the airline allows. I asked one of the cabin crew what was happening and she conceded – very apologetically – that all of the bags belonged to crew members. I managed to squeeze my bag next to an oversized pilots’ case. There seem to be at least five pilots occupying seats largely at the front of the business cabin which, of course, meant that they were served food and drink first. If Ethiopian Airlines wants to achieve reputation for being the best airline in Africa then it should try to emulate best practice and seemingly giving priority to its employees over passengers who had paid a significant amount of money to fly business class is not the best way of doing this. The cabin crew seemed embarrassed but clearly did not feel able to challenge their pilots. Other than this irritation the flight was smooth, the service efficient, the seats comfortable and both getting on and off the aircraft went smoothly.

✅ Trip Verified | Travelling with twin babies and a toddler and the cabin crew didn't help at all with anything. We were last to get of the plane because of luggage and they just watched and didn't lend a hand at all for anything.