Review of Ethiopian Airlines flight Cape Town → Addis Ababa in Business

When considering flying in business class to Cape Town from Europe, you have very limited options if your budget is limited. Therefore seems Cloud 9 in Ethiopian Airlines like a great deal, every leg flying with Dreamliner. However, you can not have high expectations, if so, I advise you to wait for one of those great promotions of Qatar Airways as their product is the best in the skies.

Airport experiance

Check-in was really quick, with smiling man who stood up when we were approaching the desk.

Security is quite bad as a queue is really long and no Priority line takes place here. Immigration goes well on the other site so these procedures require in CPT only 15 minutes. Then you can enjoy Bidvest Premier Lounge with really nice bathrooms, shower available, snacks as well as warm meals available. An announcement is made for every flight so you do not have to worry about missing your plane.

Flight

Although Ethiopian Airlines are retrofitting their 787 Dreamliners with new seats in Cloud 9, on 3 out of my 4 legs with them I experienced the old product. That seems like new seats are only on few aircraft and are more PR product than really existing.
Seats on this flight seemed quite outdated and were, like all of them on ET, extremely dirty. The mess was everywhere! I have used earplug on my seat and after boarding and receiving a hot towel I had to clean my seat with it to be able to sit there. The schedule does not help, the plane arrives in CPT in the time of scheduled boarding of next flight, so they have only a few minutes to clean the aircraft.

Immediately after boarding, you receive fresh orange juice or champagne, hot towel and menus.

Meal service consists of this leg of lunch and small hot snack before landing. I really love that crew members (always polite and smiling) gives all the dishes to your table and not the whole tray. I absolutely do not understand why many airlines are serving white sheet on the table in J if later they will serve food on a tray (I'm looking for you KLM!)
As an appetizer, we received Beef with peppers, rice salad on the side.

Main course - again beef or vegetarian meal

After you finish your meal, they started serving cheese plates and desserts from a tray. That is a nice touch. Tea is offered and you can even order really great Italian espresso!

Verdict

Athough the crew are really nice and they try hard to be best, they have only very little things to offer. Seats are old (but airplanes are the best ones), food does not impressed me and arriving in Addis Ababa is really horrible. A plane is dirty all the time and entertainment selection very limited. So if you consider flying ET this route and you have another option for the same money, you might go for that one.