pointstopictures EgyptAir? I have no idea what to expect, you might be thinking. You are not wrong; this is one of the lesser-known and flown airlines in the Miles and Points community. This article will tell you all you need to know about EgyptAir 787 business class.
If you pick your flight wisely, EgyptAir’s 787 Business Class offers incredible value—an excellent experience at an unbeatable price. Even better, you can plan for a long layover in Cairo, giving you the chance to visit the pyramids. EgyptAir makes it easy by providing free transit hotels, keeping your bags overnight, and even helping arrange tours.
Is everything perfect? Not quite—things can feel a little rough around the edges at times. But if you’re open to a few quirks, the overall experience is hard to beat for the price. Here’s our full review of EgyptAir’s 787 Business Class from Cairo to New York.
For a cost analysis and see our rating, see the end of this post.
Check-in and Boarding
When flying from Cairo, EgyptAir offers separate check-in counters for business class passengers and a Fast Track security line for Star Alliance Elites. However, the entire process can still be time-consuming due to immigration and baggage scanning.
There are two security checks – one before immigration and one after. If you are flying to the United States, you will go through another TSA-style body scanner and luggage scan before entering the boarding area. Once through the final security, there is a business class lounge, but it is quite basic.
For boarding, a couple of gate changes caused some confusion, but the situation was eventually resolved and the rest of the boarding process was smooth. Business class and economy class passengers had separate boarding lines, and boarding began an hour before departure.
EgyptAir 787 Business Class Cabin
EgyptAir’s business class cabin on their 787 aircraft has 30 seats arranged in a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone configuration, with all seats providing direct aisle access. The seats are excellent and offer a high level of comfort.
Each seat comes with a cabin door that can be closed for extra privacy, while the window seats offer exceptional privacy. The middle seats have a window that can be opened or closed according to your preference.
The cabin and seating area are in line with industry standards and very comfortable. One of the nice features of these seats is that they have a tray located right underneath the TV, which can be opened to create a large workspace. There is also ample storage space available both in the overhead bins and around the seating area.
Seats
The seats were Collins AeroSpace’s Super Diamond product. These are very comfortable and can be found in many other airlines such as Qatar, American Airlines, Etihad.
The seating area came with a pillow, blanket, an amenity kit, slippers, and a small set of stickers (more on this soon). The seating area had enough storage for small electronics, water, and shoes.
Each seat featured a universal power socket and multiple USB ports, with the seat and TV controls also doubling up as storage areas. While some of the storage areas could have been better cleaned, most of them were clean.
Each seat on the flight had a sticker that passengers could peel and attach to their seat back. The stickers had messages like “Wake me up for meal”, “Wake me up for duty-free shopping”, and “Do not wake for meal”. Although duty-free shopping wasn’t available on the flight, this was a clever idea which other airlines could adopt. It ensures passengers don’t miss their meals or get woken up when they’re trying to sleep.
Business Class Amenity Kit
The amenity kit provided by EgyptAir was sufficient. It included earplugs, lotions, socks, eye masks, toothpaste, and other items. The bag was well-made, but unbranded.
EgyptAir provided noise cancelling headphones that worked, though they were not as good as top-of-the-line headphones. A few passengers encountered some technical difficulties with their headphones, however, the flight attendants promptly assisted them with additional sets.
Entertainment and WiFi
The TV was excellent. The interface was responsive and the fonts were large. However, the movie catalog was not large. It had a few recently released movies but the overall selection was pretty small. The TV section was not any better.
However, the moving map worked well and showed the progress throughout the flight.
WiFi
The flight had WiFi available, but it was quite expensive and had very low data caps, making it essentially unusable. Passengers were given 5MB of data for free(a few emails). They had an option for $25 for 300MB data, so do not plan to watch any Netflix over the Atlantic. If you need to take care of something urgent, this might be useful.
Egyptair 787 business class in-flight Service – Food and Beverages
EgyptAir is a dry airline, which means that they do not serve any alcohol on their flights. However, there are some reports that suggest that passengers are allowed to bring their own alcohol on board and consume it. Immediately after boarding, the flight attendants offered a choice of strawberry, apple, or pineapple juice, which were excellent.
Welcome Drink
Dinner
After waiting for about an hour, the dinner service finally started. The dinner consisted of a three-course meal, which began with cheese, salad, and risotto, followed by beef. However, there is room for improvement as far as the food is concerned. Egyptian cuisine is known for its excellence, yet EgyptAir failed to incorporate any of it into their meals in their business class offering. Nevertheless, the food was decent. The cheese was soft, the salad was fresh, and the risotto tasted good.
After the starter, we were presented with the choice of chicken or steak. The chicken was well cooked but again, lacked flavor. Additionally, the portion sizes were fairly small.
The final course was desserts and tea or coffee, which were both excellent. The flight attendant offered a large variety of teas.
After dinner, cabin lights were switched off. However, the galley had the option to order more food. This food was typically a light sandwich or croissant.
Breakfast
The only other scheduled meal was breakfast. This time things improved. However, still no Egyptian fare was in sight.
Breakfast started with two quiches, which tasted good. The fresh fruits and cheesecake also tasted good.
After quiche came the french toast. These were very good. There were a choice of breads or croissants on the side as well.
The dessert was either a fresh fruit platter or cake. Along with the fruits, there was the usual choice of tea and coffee.
Overall, the food and beverages were not bad. However, including some local dishes will not hurt EgyptAir. On a 12 hour flight, only two scheduled meal services will make some people hungry. The quantity was also on the smaller side. On the bright side, the meal service included a very nice looking miniature salt pepper set that you could take home.
Toilet
There were three lavatories for business passengers – one at the front and two behind the business class. This meant there was approximately one lavatory for every ten passengers, not bad. Further, the air hostesses kept the two lavatories behind business class locked at all times. This was to prevent economy passengers from using them. Flight attendants would open them for business passengers as necessary. As a result, these lavatories were very clean, at least until the very end of the flight. The lavatories themselves were standard and equipped with hand sanitizers and lotions.
EgyptAir 787 Business Class – Overall Summary
EgyptAir can offer excellent value for those looking to fly in business class, especially if you are paying cash. For instance, a round-trip ticket from Mumbai, India to Newark, New York costs approximately $2,600 with EgyptAir, while other Gulf carriers charge over $6,000 for a similar itinerary.
Additionally, you can usually add a stopover in Cairo for free. If you have a long layover, the airline will arrange free accommodation as well as all meals for business class passengers. The business class passengers typically receive a free stay at the Le Meridian attached to the airport. The hotel itself is very nice and directly accessible via a walkway. They can also arrange tours (not complimentary but fairly cheap) if you want to explore Cairo. That layover alone can make it worth taking EgyptAir.
Quantitative Analysis
We recognize reviews are often biased and subjective. This section summarizes the review qualitatively.
Cost Analysis
EgyptAir Busness Class is a great value. For example, a 16,000 mile round trip between New York, USA and Mumbai, India is 2,600 USD. This comes to approximately 16 cents/mile in business class, which is an incredible value. If you value the cost of trip and hotels during your stopover even at a modest $200, your cost even goes down further.
Our Rating
| Aspect | Notes | Score (out of 10) |
|---|---|---|
| Check-in | Depends on the airport. Coordination among staff can be lacking. | 5 |
| Hard Product | ||
| – Seat Comfort | Seats are excellent | 10 |
| – In-flight Entertainment | Not many choices. Kids programming is especially limited. Headphone quality not great. | 4 |
| – Cleanliness | Seats could be better cleaned. Bathroom was spotless | 6 |
| Soft Product | ||
| – Food Quality | Okay but not great. No local fare offered. Food was fresh. | 5 |
| – Beverage Selection | No Alcohol but other drinks are plenty and good | 5 |
| Cabin Crew | Friendliness, attentiveness, responsiveness to passenger requests is good | 8 |
| Amenities | Pillow, amenity kits were good but utilitarian | 7 |
| Lounges | Lounges could be massively improved. Use priority pass or other lounges, if available | 1 |
| Cents per Mile | Incredible value | 10 |
| Total | 61/100 |
