Review of Middle East Airlines flight İzmir → Beirut in Economy

For the second consecutive year, Middle East Airlines (MEA) had held its Digital Networking Event. In 2017, the meeting was held in Sharm El Sheikh - Egypt. This year, the meeting was held in Izmir - Turkey. I was very lucky to be one of MEA's 116 guests for this year trip.
My flight from Beirut to Izmir was on April 6th, 2018, you can see the related flight report here:
https://flight-report.com/en/report/31669/Middle-East-Airlines-ME7269-Beirut-BEY-zmir-ADB

Now after really 4 wonderful days, it was time to go back to Beirut. We arrived at İzmir - Adnan Menderes (ADB) about one hour before the flight departure to Beirut

Special dedicated counters for MEA were allocated at the airport:



My boarding pass was issued and I was assigned to seat 25F.



To kill time, I started plane spotting. Since the airport is relatively calm, I snapped the shot of a Lufthansa A320 taxing to the gate.



Few minutes later, the CedarJet lady arrived from "Beirut"



How can spot or locate the captain and the F/O?



The plane parked at gate 2-31 and shortly boarding started:



Again although my seat is economy, the whole passengers were treated as "Business Class" passengers.
The friendly cabin crew started serving chilled fresh orange juice in fancy glass cups for all passengers before departure.



We departed 20 minutes ahead of our departure time, great sceneries of Izmir were spotted from the plane as we climbed to our cruise level of 35,000 feet.



It is afternoon, and the flight duration is 1 hour and 20 minutes. So would you expect a sandwich or a cracker? Well, when it comes to flying MEA, even the shortest sectors get a decent meal that suits the flight duration. So here we go, as we were reaching our flight level of 35,000 feet, the friendly cabin crew handled us meal trays, that contained the following:

- Crackers and butter spreading and a small bottle of olive oil



- Fresh salad



- Club sandwiches assortments (marinated chicken with cheese and pickles)




- Desserts which consisted of chocolate moose cake and oriental stuffed sweet



The overall meal tray looked as follows:



Salt & pepper were even served in shakers … thumbs up



Drinking services was available during the whole flight. A wide selection of wines, spirits, whisky, beer, and soft drinks were available in unlimited quantities. Coffee and tea were also served



I opted for a diet Pepsi served in the form of full can and a glass cup:



As usual, my favorite TV show on my personal IFE:



CedarWings Magazines are MEA's in-flight magazines since 1990



Just before approach, and since it was Eastern, the friendly cabin crew served us Lebanese sweets consisting of pistachio stuffed bakeries


Just before landing, hot towels were handled to all passengers to fresh-up



Approaching and landing at Beirut was smooth using the north rwy 16