Ethiopian Airlines

Addis Ababa to London with Ethiopian Airlines. The seats were very cramped, the service slow and lazy - I was in a window seat and unable to get out, and when I asked for some water the stewardess almost rolled her eyes and finally very grudgingly filled my water bottle. Why not give everyone a bottle as most airlines do on over night flights? The lights were turned off/on and on/off so many times, and it was hard to get sleep when they're doing this frequently. A let down for Ethiopian hospitality which was otherwise so good. Addis Ababa airport was another lesson in poor customer service - 1.5 hrs to get through the second lot before the boarding gate - bad tempered and unpleasant!

I'm a regular flyer on Ethiopian Airlines (London to Addis Ababa). The positives are few and far between. You are unable to check in online in the UK. The transfer service at Heathrow is terrible where the desk only opens 2 hours before departure. The IT system at Heathrow is almost non existent, and you are unable to upgrade, and bookings, even adding your Star Alliance Gold Card don't work. Boarding the plane is a shambles. Amazingly even the new aircraft look tired and shabby. The onboard toilets are filthy and often there are no hand towels. The staff appear poorly trained. The choice of drinks is limited and poor quality and food is normally poor. My luggage gets lost about 1 in 3 of all flights on Ethiopian. Luggage tracing is non existent. The Bole Airport experience is pretty poor, aggressive customs, shambolic Visa on Arrival, rip off taxi drivers. I used to fly business class but it is simply not worth it. An Ethiopian Airlines flight is not for the faint hearted.

Business class from Dublin to Addis Ababa and economy onto Cape Town. Excellent help at the check in desk at Dublin and easy boarding despite plane arriving late from Los Angeles. Great welcome on the plane and helpful staff throughout - this was so on the economy flight to Cape Town as well. Very comfortable business class seats - although going full flat to 180 degs would be better. 7Boeing 87 a great plane to fly on - quiet and better cabin conditions. Boeing 737 to Cape Town very full - spacious seating for a small plane. Good service with reasonable food. Toilets kept clean. Realtively easy boarding in Addis Ababa via bus transfer. First time using Ethiopian and likely to use again if prices remain so good. Shame about their hub at Addis Ababa - not the best airport in the world.

I was travelling Ethiopian Airlines to Lagos from London via Addis Ababa. I bought 2 bottles of perfume and 3 books with some chocolates at the duty free shops. When I got to the gate, I was shocked to meet a very hostile Ethiopian Airlines staff there who said I was now over my baggage allowance and I was told that I had to pay for excess luggage or miss my flight. He was very rude when I tried to explain myself to him. I had never experienced anything like that with any other airline before. What you buy at duty free shops airside shouldn't count as excess luggage, especially when it's not excessive. Otherwise why are the shops there? I had the receipts as proof that the items were bought there at the airport but he didn't want to hear anything I had to say. He shouted at me everytime I tried to explain. So I had no choice but to pay. Is this right for airlines to make passengers pay for excess baggage for duty free goods bought at the airport? I have given the ground service rating 1 star because there's nothing lower. They don't actually deserve any star at all. The cabin staff were good.

I've just returned from a trip using Ethiopian Airlines. On the outbound journey they bumped us off one flight, bumped us off another then re routed us via Entebbe causing us to miss a whole day of activities whilst on tour in Rwanda. When we arrived it was to major disappointment our luggage didn't. The airline staff had no idea where our bags were and it took 2 days to locate them (one member ensuring us they were in Addis and would be arriving on the next flight, 6 flights arrived and still no luggage and one telling us they got takn off in Entebbe as there was no room on the plane due to other cargo). This ruined the start of our holiday as well as missing out on activities that we had pre paid for! The return leg was nothing more than a farce and absolute disgrace to the aviation industry! We were due to depart Kigali at 3.30 on Sep 29th, they hoarded the passengers to the gate where we were kept for over 4 hours as the screen kept displaying delay messages, no staff were present to request assistance from, nor was there access to any bathroom or water, we were hot and tired along with many other passengers. Eventually, around 6pm, we found out the flight was cancelled due to a cracked windscreen. This is not the ideal information to receive. Instead of handling the situation, their ground staff manager in Kigali airport was a disgrace and had no customer service skills. We were given no information and when asking for information or whether we could be rebooked she continued to shout at all the tired and upset passengers and treat us like dogs. We were herded round the back of the airport to collect our own bags and told to leave if we want - to go where?? Having arrived at the airport at 1.30pm and after a long tiring day we eventually were rebooked by 10.30pm, it took 9 hours and we were offered nothing! Not even a spoken apology came from the ground staff! We were rebooked at 2.30am on September 30th and had nowhere to go. We then had to go via Addis and Dubai and had approx another 24 hours of travelling till we'd reach our final destination. This meant taking extra days of vacation as we arrived back a day late. We were offered nothing by means of an apology, food or water just abuse by the Ethiopian Airlines ground staff. I've never been treated so badly in my life, my holiday was ruined due to their inability to provide the service I paid for and it was apparant they do not care about their passengers just making money by redirecting flights to collect more people (money) and refusing to rebook us with alternate airlines when cancelling our flight. I am appalled a so called customer service orientated company can treat human beings like this, yet alone paying customers! To make matters worse the planes were old, there was no entertainment on board, not even a shared TV screen and the seats were old and uncomfortable.

I flew Ethiopian Airlines from Washington to Addis Ababa. From the outset, the flight attendants were not even close to "hospitable". There were times that I needed a glass of water a number of times I was given a completely unwelcoming demeanor from the flight attendant that i talked to. It is a completely unfriendly vibe that you will find. I know about Ethiopian culture as I myself am an Ethiopian. We grew up being told serving others is inferior than being served and we tend to reflect that in all our dealings. What was painful was to see them serve other nationals better, even if we paid the same amount of money for the service. My return trip was better than my trip home. We were served Injera that I didn't find in my first trip and the attendants were also better.

As a Star alliance partner, Ethiopian Airlines share the domestic route with Air India from Kochi to Mumbai. My flight was from Mumbai to Addis and Addis to Dar es Salaam. Overall, I would say this is a flight worth considering. The quality of the flight is good and the service is also reasonably good. Inflight entertainment needs to be improved. A route from India (or any other country for that matter) should have more choices for the local people who travel that route. Except that it was a comfortable journey. Airport in Addis needs to be improved a lot. Addis to Dar flight was less crowded and food was not so great, but good. Overall a good experience.

After a first (and last) experience with Ethiopian Airlines, I will never recommend it. We booked a round trip to Benin and at destination on Sat Aug 15 in Cotonou, 3 of our bags were missing. We were told we would get them the following Monday. However, we didn't get our bags until Wednesday the 19th. Following this horrible experience, a representative of ET took care of us in Benin and did a great job. Unfortunately, we are back in the US today and none of our bags (4 of them) made it. This is unacceptable and a complete disregard to customers. The representatives at the airport just told us that we would get our luggage without any explanation, many other flyers were in the same situation in both Cotonou and Dulles. The bags had all priority tags on them and were still left behind. On a first flight with Ethiopian Airlines, we are completely discouraged by the service.

I flew ET on 27 Aug 2015 from BKK to ADD in Business Class. Knowing the massive investment of Ethiopian in brand new B787 planes I expected also a good quality in the rest of the ET's fleet - I was completely wrong. The Business Class on B767-300 is at least 20 years old. Seats are with old mechanical controls and not working properly. In-flight entertainment is very poor and the screen's quality is very bad. The two hostesses tried to do their best but the state of the cabin was so poor that it was impossible to enjoy this 8 hrs flight. First and last time I fly Ethiopian.

My family were traveling on Ethiopian Airlines for the first time. Unfortunately our experience was not very pleasant. We were traveling on July 27th 2015 from DUB-LAX. We arrived to find that our flight had been delayed, we had not been notified neither text, or email (which is standard by most airlines) nor did the ground staff have any idea of the length of delay. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 7.15am. Our flight crew showed up after 8.00am. Still my two excited children were excited about the trip ahead of them. We boarded the plane and found our seats. Then we waited and waited. We waited 30 minutes for the missing passengers to board. Unfortunately for 8 hours out of the 11 hour flight we had two children screaming and fighting with each other and kicking seats of other passengers. (Its not the airlines fault). We had one receptive flight attendant the whole time. She was delightful and did her best at trying to locate our pre-ordered meals. The other flight attendants seemed exhausted, by the end of the trip they just hit the back of a passengers chair if it was in full recline and would say "move it up" it just became comical. The inflight entertainment was scarce, the flight tracker was never reset as it stated we were departing from Addis Ababa not Dublin. By the time we landed in LAX there was no "thank you for flying with us" just "bye" as all the passengerd exited. One of my children had left a bag with toys under the seat in front of her. We did not discover this until we haf arrived at our accomdation. Simple fix right? Call the airline and airport. Wrong, 3 days of being put on hold, being transfered then being hung up on time after time. We finally got a number of a gate agent who said they would call us back (they never did) again we tried and someone told us to come to "CBS" one 1.5 hours later we got the bag back. Then only then someone asked us to fill out a missing bag report after we had tge bag in hand. Horrible experience.