Review of Ethiopian Airlines flight Manchester → Geneva in Economy

MANCHESTER - GENEVA OVERVIEW

Manchester – Geneva has always been served with nonstop service.
In the past,when BA had a hub at Manchester, they flew Manchester-Geneva.

When Saudia launched scheduled Manchester Passenger services in 2007, they flew a 747-400 on the MAN-GVA-JED route. Some adverts in my collection from that time.

I am not sure if Swissair/Swiss ever flew Manchester-Geneva but in the present day easyJet fly regular flights between Manchester and Geneva and jet2 fly seasonal services.

When Ethiopian Airlines commenced Manchester Passenger service in 2018, they operated flights via Brussels, The service was due to go nonstop to Addis Ababa from 2020, but covid19 put paid to that.

In 2022, it was announced that Ethiopian Airlines had obtained fifth freedom rights to operate flights from Manchester to Addis Ababa via Geneva,thereby replacing the established Brussels transit stop. However Ethiopian Airlines did not have rights to carry passengers on the MANBRUMAN legs.

The 4 x weekly service would operate via the Swiss city from October 30th 2022 with the following proposed schedule ;

Departs Manchester 1850pm
Arrives Geneva 2140pm
Departs Geneva 2240pm
Arrives Addis Ababa 0730am

Departs Addis Ababa 0115am
Arrives Geneva 0615am
Departs Geneva 0715am
Arrives Manchester 0805am

Passengers flying to the Ethiopian capital remain onboard the aircraft when it lands in Geneva. In the opposite direction, those bound for Manchester remain onboard. The service has since gone 5 x weekly.

NEW ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES ROUTES

As well as this new MANGVA route, in 2023, it was announced that Ethiopian would be restarting Karachi,Pakistan after 2 decades, Copenhagen,Denmark after 20 years and Kuala Lumpur/Singapore after 3 years. Also, a new service to Atlanta (via Dublin ).

Photo of an Ethiopian 787 Dreamliner taken by myself on 22nd March 2022 whilst training for my then job at MAN.

A350 on tv at my Parent's home

reservation / app / seat selection

I made my August 2023 booking on 21st October 2022 – 9 days before the inaugural flight ! At GBP150.00, with a 1 x 23kg suitcase included, this was a bargain too good to miss !

It took a while for the Reservation to come through and when it did I did not clearly see the Ethiopian Airlines PNR so had to ring their Contact Centre in Addis Ababa on the day of the booking. I believe the gentleman was Anton and he was really helpful,patient and polite and got me the Ethiopian Airlines PNR, which I want to advise was half an Airport in Wales and half an Airport in the US ( 2 x 3 letter codes ! ).

A very unique PNR indeed ( CWLRDU) if you really want to know !

My youngest Brother had been top of my list to take with me, so when booking my Brother on 13th April, I found out that row 11 (first row of Economy) only has 2 seats ! Ethiopian Plus !

I was truly happy, although, great as it was to get these seats for free, I am sure Ethiopian will charge for them in future.

This service reminds me of the good old days when you bought a ticket and had everything included, in this case Ethiopian Airlines offers a suitcase, complimentary seat selection and free drinks / catering. 

The ET app is not responsive and takes around 10 seconds on average to go between pages and really needs an  urgent upgrade. This is not the last you will hear of the app by the way !

I prefer to fly flag carriers, however, in the absence of Swiss service from Manchester to Geneva but flying between two Star Alliance hubs, I had no issue flying Ethiopian Airlines, a Star Alliance member, from Manchester to Geneva, which is home to StarAlliance sister Swiss !

Talking of some of my Star Alliance history, I have flown on my Birthday on the following days/routes /Airlines  ( in year order ) ;

Thu     24Aug17 SN MANBRU 
Fri       24Aug18 SQ MANIAH 
Wed    24Aug22 SK  MANOSL 

The last time I flew on an A350 was on Singapore Airlines MANIAHMAN.
 
A beautiful video of the first MAN-GVA service by Ethiopian, with an appropriately named A350 ( GENEVA ) !

CHECKIN / security / airside

Our aircraft had arrived on it's inbound flight early the same morning. I actually caught a glimpse of the aircraft from my bedroom that morning as the A350 was on final approach into Manchester. Thank God for flightradar24 !

We arrived at MAN T2 at 1430pm and immediately noted that the old part of the terminal had subtle upgrade changes, which when complete in 2025, eventually will bring it in line with the new T2 which will become the flagship terminal of Manchester Airport of the future. I had been told by Ethiopian Airlines that checkin will open at 1530pm.

Resized photo - sorry for the blurriness !

Thinking we will be stood around for 1 hour, I was surprised to see checkin was well and truly open, albeit only around 30 passengers were at checkin at this time. Ethiopian Airlines want passengers to checkin on the app. However, despite being a very experienced traveller and app user ( this is my 62nd flight report ), I had been struggling since Monday evening to get us checked in. Eventually I found out from Ethiopian Airlines Manchester that we had in fact been checked in and would be

Upon arriving at the checkin, staff asked if we had our Boarding Passes and I advised no. We were directed to the Special Assistance desk E7 and we would be stood there a good half hour due to a lady with two young kids and endless baggage. Luckily me and my Brothers were busy talking, otherwise it would have been a very painful wait.

At around 1500pm we were summoned to desk E7 by a lovely and smiling lady named Bev. From her grooming to her attitude to her warm,professional service, including wishing me a Happy Birthday and a nice holiday, she absolutely made the checkin process a joy. She set the tone for the flight and holiday ahead. Now this is what you call super service !  

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I glanced at security which is right beside the "E" lettered bank of desks, there were only a small handful of passengers going through and no queues. Whilst being checked in, Bev was joined by a lovely friendly lady named Natalie who was really pleasant and friendly and also wished me a Happy Birthday. I was highly impressed with the service. Natalie was in dnata uniform ( the handling agent for ET at MAN ) and Bev wore the ET uniform with retro ET letters all over it.

In the end it was only me who was showing as checked in and had managed to get a printed Boarding Pass. The lovely dnata Supervisor Lauren came over and said that I should try to check in my Brothers on the app again. I tried and lo and behold, they managed to get their Boarding Passes.. I was told to get images of their Boarding Passes and I duly did this and emailed them their respective Boarding Passes. At Manchester we had been told we must checkin on the app despite it being down. It only started working just minutes after we got to the desk. IEthiopian Airlines need to really fix this. If someone travel savvy like me can get annoyed by this "must checkin on the app" situation then imagine how an everyday person would feel.

I have to say, that if Ethiopian Airlines want passengers to checkin on the app, they need a much better app that doesn't work at snail pace if at all. And actually checks passengers in ! On the back of this, there was no desk that was just for bag drop and the majority of passengers were being checked in the traditional way.

Once check in was completed, I headed downstairs to pickup a free gift from M&S who had emailed me a few days earlier to say there was a Birthday Surprise for me :) My nearest store and most convenient happened to be Manchester Airport !

My Brothers then took a look around the new pier as they had never flown from here before and they were highly impressed,visiting various shops and stores. 

The new pier of Terminal Two at Manchester truly is World Class  Although I do feel this message, located in the Departure Lounge, should read " Enjoy Your Flight From Manchester Airport ! ".

The view upon clearing Security - And there she was..my Birthday ride to Geneva ! Resting after her long flight that morning from Addis Ababa via Geneva. You see the Saudia 787 taxying towards the runway - exactly 7 days later, one of my Brothers would be flying Saudia to Jeddah to perform the Umrah pilgrimage.

QR28 A7-BAK pushing back for her longhaul flight to Doha. The 2nd one of the day from Manchester in a total of 3. I love how some of QR registrations are almost ex PIA registrations ( in this case PIA's AP-BAK which was a 74M ).

Birthday Treat from my Brothers - Loaded Fries from Archies ! Although queues were starting to build up, we were through security in 5 minutes. Once fully airside, my Brothers bought me a Millionaires Milkshake and Loaded fries from the Manchester Fast Food institution that is Archies !

boarding

Boarding was due to be at 1745pm but at 1630pm there was still no gate. I then got an email from my Travel Agent about my gate (A12) before the Airport even made this information available ! Around 1700pm I started walking to the gate and noted my aircraft being towed onto stand ahead of boarding, Interestingly, this was my gate in 2019 for my first ever Saudia flight to Jeddah ( see flight reports ) and exactly 7 days after my Geneva flight, my Brother would fly to Jeddah from this very gate !

Laura, the Ethiopian Airlines Airport/Station Manager, came over to my Brothers and asked their surname . I then introduced myself and she told me a gift bag was on the way from checkin ! I managed to get preboarding and was really made up !    At the gate I got talking to a guy who was talking about this great new route and how he was off to DJ at a gig 1 hour from Geneva.

At 1740pm, we were invited to board first and I was handed a large gift bag and wished me a Happy Birthday. I had let the Airline know I am flying on my birthday and so far I was really happy with my birthday love ! But was there more to come ? Stay tuned and you will find out !

Beautiful views of my ride to Geneva !

We boarded and an Airhostess in a beautiful traditional Ethiopian Habesha dress welcomed us onboard with a warm friendly smile. I managed to get some nice cabin shots whilst also stowing my hand luggage and getting seated. At first glance, the cabin presentation looks amazing - vibrant and bright colours. However, given that this aircraft had been on the ground almost 10 hours before I boarded, the headrest covers are not in the best condition, one is even missing if you look on the right of this photo and a lot of them have a string hanging down where they are meant to be fastened onto the velcro on the seat.  Each seat has a blanket and pillow place on it. Precovid this would look beautiful however I do feel that both amenities should now be wrapped for hygiene purposes.

Originally, myself and my youngest Brother were flying. Then another Brother wanted to join. Strangely, the seats we had selected 11AB were a twin pair. As soon as my other Brother made his booking, the aircraft configuration changed to a row of 3 and we quickly got him booked on 11C ! This is truly a strange phenomena ! By the way, Ethiopian classes row 11 on the A350 as a premium row - we got the seats free but I imagine that Ethiopian Airlines will charge in the future !

I think the first several rows should be exclusively for passengers only flying MAN-GVA. Not only does this help with weight and balance, it would also mean swift disembarkation and embarkation at Geneva.

For hygiene reasons, I do feel that the pillow/blanket should be packaged in one.

Looks like someone was in a rush t replace the headrest covers….if they have been replaced at all. Nothing irks me more than when an aircraft has been on the ground for hours and cabin presentation still looks so poor.

You see my gift bag on the row behind - not to be confused with stray items left behind !

I saw Crew helping with the stowing of bags - something I had not seen for decades ! It is a Requirement of job to be able to reach into the overhead locker, but most, usually Western Airlines make a deal of helping with luggage stowage.

I asked for an extension seatbelt and was promptly brought one. Information and boarding videos and music began playing during boarding.

The dirty TV screen was also broken. I would not have been happy if I had had to go all the way to Addis Ababa like this. I had to hold the screen anytime I wanted to view anyhting. In later photos the screen is only sparkling clean because I gave it a good wipe down before take off. Looks like the cleaners were in a huge rush when they cleaned the aircraft.

I notified an Airhostess nearby of the broken tv screen. She let a Manchester based engineer know about the broken tv screen. He came to have a look then walked off. The Airhostess came back and said that after take off, they will find me a new seat but I politely declined.  If I had been flying alone and to Addis Ababa,, I definately would have needed to change.

Various Ethiopian Airlines Videos are shown during boarding

We also had a very nice interactive "Airshow" moving map display.

At 1825pm we were fully boarded and at 1838pm the doors closed announcement was made.

After the bridge came off, I asked a passing Airhostess from water and she energetically said " Sure" and brought me a cup. During boarding passengers had been walking into the galley and helping themselves to water from a bottle and cups available.

An announcement was made for the flight time of 1hr 30 minutes and to ask the crew for help anytime and that this was a Non smoking flight.
An Amharic and English welcome followed at 1844pm followed by the dual language safety video which is bradcast in English with Amharic subitles. The Airhostess stood by my row dutring the safety demonstration, did a finger wag ( think Deltalina ) when she saw me filming my TV Screen and said my mobile needs to be switched off. What a ludirous thing to say in 2023.  Another Airhostess then distributed earphones. 

At 184pm we pushed back and 1850pm the engines sprung into life.
The Inflight Manager, Ms Sirgut came to see me and gave me a handshake and wished me Happy Birthday.

I had let the crew know during boarding that it is my birthday. Do keep reading regarding this !

Some planespotting for my Flight Report family !

First up, Turkish Airlines A321 TC-JTD "Cankaya" about to operate a very late TK1996 back home to Istanbul,

SAS new livery A320neo no doubt going to Stockholm judgiing by the time I made this photo. That smudge on the window is so annoying !

Lufthansa A320 -D-AIWB with winglets - since this photo on 24th August 2023, this A320 has gone to fly for Discover Airlines !

And to complete the Star Alliance lineup - an older liveried SAS A320neo and a Helvetic E190 operating on behalf of Swiss+.

The Airport Pub at Manchester Airport - with up close views of very big birds !

take off

At 1904pm, basking in the glorious Manchester sunshine, our A350 roared down Runway 1 and we lifted off for my family Birthday adventure in Geneva ! Beautiful enroute views :)

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AMENITIES / COMFORT

A blanket and pillow are at each seat. I removed the wrapper of the earphones to get a better photo. The earphones were handed out after boarding was complete. Ethiopian Airlines passionately brands all products from check in to the gate to onboard.

Blanket spread out.

inflight entertainment

Selamta - Amharic for Greetings, is the name of Ethiopian Airlines inflight magazine and it made a welcome return in May/June 2023 after 3 years.

A very wide range of multilingual IFE is offered and it is a shame that I was only onboard for 90 minutes or so. But for those continuing their journey to Addis Ababa ( and beyond ) it means they can really customise their choices on the MAN-GVA-ADD legs.

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Very bizarrely, I could not find a single song or video programme about the world's most famous Ethiopian aka Abel Makkonen Tesfaye aka The Weeknd !

inflight catering

Service began at our row. Despite my ShebaMiles Profile stating my meal preference is MOML ( Muslim Meal ), I  was surprised we got served a Coronation Chicken Sandwich ( by TwelveToGo )  I told the Airhostess we are Muslim and cannot eat this, She was gone for a good few minutes and then came back with multiple vegetarian sandwiches, no doubt to also offer other non meat eaters or those with Religious dietary preferences.

Unlike the standard sandwich, our sandwich came in a handy package that also acts as a wastebag. The sandwich was a wholemeal mini baguette with cream cheese and cucumber. It tasted really nice !

Ethiopian Airlines are very passionate about their branding and it appears absolutely everywhere you may think of !

Timely article about African cuisine in the July/August 2023 issue of Onboard Hospitality magazine.

As we crossed the channel, I asked for a Pineapple Juice …..it is my Birthday after all ! Although it does not look like there is too much, the large ice cubes however really diluted the tang !

Is there a more beautiful view ?!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME !

You remember when I said earlier I had let the crew know it is my Birthday today ?!

Well, after the inflight service was over, an Airhostess invited me to the Galley. I will let the photos do the talking. I have blurred my name which was written in chocolate.

I was overwhelmed at the effort and attention to detail regards the cake and the thoughtfully decorated trolley. An announcement was made for me before the crew clapped and sang me Happy Birthday in Amharic and English. Melkem Lidet to me !

if you think this is nice,then see what I got next. Copies of Selamta magazine digned by the Captain and the Inflight Mangerr !

And if you think that was nice,then here is a very touching moment for me in the Sky ! Goodybags with an exclusive Green amenity kit ( there are also red and yellow ones in this series ! 

You remember I said I got a goody bag at the gate too ?….

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As well as all that beautiful swag, a packet of Ethiopian Coffee - Ethiopia being the home of Coffee !

I had lovely photos with the crew to commemorate this most beautiful birthday in the sky !

ARRIVAL INTO GENEVA

After a beautiful Birthday party in the sky, we began entering French Airspace.

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Around 2100pm we began our gradual descent into Geneva. I have to say the A350 doesn't allow the crew much privacy, Curtains only mask the exit area. When some crew were fixing their dresses/uniform this could be seen in the galley which was in full view of the cabin.

Bienvenue a Geneve / Willkommen in Geneva / Welcome to Geneva !

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How we left our seat area, to make it easy for the cleaners…..see ET 728's review.

A peek into Cloud 9 Business Class.

A gentleman from the handling agent dnata made an announcement that asked all Geneva disembarking passengers to have their boarding passes ready for inspection. He said " Merci" to each passenger whilst he stood at the door. Around 60 passengers must have disembarked, showing how strong the loads are for this route, The airbridge was boiling hot, reflective of Geneva's most warm evening tonight !

You know you are in Switzerland when….

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Of all the times the Airport WiFi should not work, it was tonight ! I had my Free Geneva Public Transport Tickets but my Brothers had not been able to get theirs. Also they could not get online. Nearly an hour was wasted trying to get online until I had an idea for us to approach the Information Desk. Daniella very kindly gave us temporary internet access and printed the tickets out ( which no one checked even once during our visit by the way ! ).

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A piece of Denmark in Geneva Airport ! Pronounced Hooi- Guh !

7 days after this flight,my Brother spotted Ethiopian at Manchester whilst he waited for his Saudia flight to Jeddah.