Review of Ethiopian Airlines flight Nairobi → Addis Ababa in Economy

Hello and welcome to this flight report!
My apologies for the delay of the release of the second report,
2019 been a quite hectic and busy year has resulted to the delay of the FRs, however they will be out in the course of the next two months.
The various flight reports will be the following:
TK069; BKK-IST (B777-300ER) (https://flight-report.com/en/report/39518/turkish-airlines-tk069-bangkok-bkk-istanbul-ist)
TG102; BKK-CNX (B777-300ER) [SOON]
TG121; CNX-BKK (B777-200ER) [SOON]
ET307;NBO-ADD (B737-MAX8) [HERE]
ET628;ADD-BKK (B787-8) [SOON]
TK607; IST-NBO (B737-MAX8) [SOON]

OPENING STATEMENT:

The flight report here is dedicated to the 157 Ethiopian Airlines crew and passengers who earlier this year perished onboard  ET 302, a ADD-NBO scheduled flight and once again may the souls of those who were onboard Rest In Peace. The following flight report is an appreciation of the continued service that ET continues to strive for its passengers

INTRODUCTION:
Well this was my first time to try out Ethiopian airlines, and this was a totally unexpected last minute move. Having failed to get a reasonable pricing to Bangkok (one-way) the only option I had was ET that was left which was offering a better price as compared to EK,KQ, QR & TK.

This was a mixed reaction from my side, as it meant I would finally get to experience what the “arch enemy” of Kenyan aviation looked like. Having noted that for the past years, ET has significantly grown to become a world class airline and I would finally get the chance to understand why so.

ET 307: NAIROBI-ADDIS ABABA
I had a 7pm flight which meant I had the better part of the morning to prepare for my flight, and I was all really excited as I would be flying the Boeing 737-8MAX that was on scheduled ops between ADD & NBO.
However on the days coming up I was really skeptical with ET as they had the unnecessary tendency of switching aircrafts depending on the demand of the day and since I wasn’t in the mood for surprises and been the fact that it was Christmas Eve, level of skepticism was relatively high,
I later went and checked FR24 to just confirm which aircraft it was and indeed it was the MAX!
The level of excitement that was in me, was way beyond explanation :D as I had constantly wondered when I would try out this peace of beauty.

Anyway, with that, I headed to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport where I we checked in at the T1C where the Star Alliance carriers usually check in from such as SAA,LH & LX. And this is where the beginning of my short term problems began.
The check in agents, who were from KQ (Kenya Airways) were the ones who were doing the check in and during the check in process, the guy at the check in desk somehow thought that the seat I had pre selected during my bookings was a wrong one, and therefore he removed it from my ticketing details, and during the whole process, he began to ask me if I was aware that I had a preselected seat, and having confirmed to him like 800 times that I’m the one who did it, he finally agreed and just when he was re instating the my seat, it got taken by another passenger who was been checked in.
Having been frustrated by the actions of that man, I told him I needed my window seat back and since he couldn’t do anything, he told me a simple “you will be further assisted at the gate sir”
I soon abandoned him and proceeded into passport control and eventually to my gate.

I was therefore assigned Seat 24L which was theoretically a window seat and in my mind I was sure that all was sorted, but I would realize that wasn’t meant to be 

Boarding was soon called and impressively on time and since it was a walk to the plane kinda boarding, I knew it was time to take some shots of the new MAX aircraft. And oh my, It was a beauty to behold

Boarding through the back gave me the first impression of the economy class of which it was really airy and looked spacious and most importantly, new which was a very first good impression

And so during the boarding process, I found a gentleman seated on my 24L seat and after requesting him to show me his boarding pass, we found out that his boarding pass read the same as mine after which we decided to involve the crew, I explained to the crew how the check in agents messed up my booking and that he was given my seat by luck, after which , she decided to call in the agents on ground. After a few minutes, a KQ agent came in with new boarding passes for both of us and that was the moment of truth. The truth declared the man who was on the window seat as the rightful owner of the position which meant I was reassigned to an isle seat. I was absolutely devastated by this considering how much I had looked forward to this beautiful flight. The kind ET crew consoled me and told me that she would help me find a window seat once it was possible. In the meantime, I settled on 24C which wasn’t as bad since I had a free middle row, and since it was a night flight, I was bothered, but not as such.

View of 24C with an EK B777W to the usual DXB.

View of the opposite side

Within no time, the doors were closed and pushback began immediately with the engines rolled on exactly on time which was very impressive.
The inflight screens de-folded and the inflight demo immediately began

And after taxiing, we soon aligned on runway and began the take off roll, the take off was a very smooth one and I soon bid farewell to Nairobi!
After ten minutes, we reached cruising altitude and the cabin crew began to prepare the dinner service.
In the meantime, I decided to have a look at the inflight magazine which is called “Selamta” the magazine was very informative as it also included the favorite part of the magazine which was the fleet of ET & also announcing destinations to Moscow, IST & MAN. They also had a duty free catalogue and also here’s a display of the MAX safety card

Soon after, the crew handed out the meal, which was an option of chicken or lamb, of which I opted for the chicken with a drink aside and the meal was Quite good but not as good but it was very much appreciated as compared to its nearest competitors

After that they went out to do a round of coffee/tea of which I had a usual coffee

The legroom in the meantime was very pleasant and a feature that I appreciated was that there was a charging port below the seat which was both USB and adapter which was very handful for this flight. At the time, the aircraft did not have WIFI onboard

Later on after the crew completed all their service, they put the mood lighting into rest for purposes of the passengers and I just couldn’t stop admiring the whole cabin feel of the BSI (Boeing Sky Interior) in full effect :D.

The mood lighting remained like that until when the captain announced that it was time to descend and the descend pattern was very nice until we finally landed at the Bole International Airport, an airport I thought I would avoid for the longest time.

After taxiing for a while we finally arrived our gate after a 1h 50 minute flight. I had 2.5 hours for my connection flight to Bangkok which I was happy about. In the background there is a ET 787 parked.

Since it was a bus gate, we deboarded from the front and had a chance to see the business class cabin and some extra shots of the economy class cabin.

The final views of ET-AVM, the second MAX aircraft for ET, which was a wonderful aircraft to be in. It was roughly 5 months old at the time I flew in it

We later on arrived at the terminal and was able to make it for my connecting flight to BKK which the report will be here soon ;)