Review of Lufthansa flight Cairo → Munich in Business

I work as a tour guide in Iceland and mid-December is one of the few very quiet times of the year – perfect time to travel. I was planning to go to Gambia with Royal Air Maroc but Morocco decided to cancel all flights to and from the country. I booked a Lufthansa flight from Paris to Cairo only four days before departure at a very reasonable rate of 550 € return in business class, and I had already booked a one-way flight from Paris to Budapest with Swiss. Here are all my flights:

Play, Keflavík to Paris, economy class
Lufthansa, Paris to Munich, business class
Lufthansa, Munich to Cairo, business class
Egyptair, Cairo to Aswan, business class 
Egyptair, Aswan to Cairo, business class
Lufthansa, Cairo to Munich, business class (here)
Lufthansa, Munich to Paris, business class
Swiss, Paris to Zurich, business class
Swiss, Zurich to Budapest, business class
Wizzair, Budapest to Keflavík, economy class (no flight report)

I had four flights on the same day: Cairo to Munich to Paris CDG with Lufthansa and Paris CDG to Zurich to Budapest with Swiss. I think I've never flown four segments on business class on the same day. There are of course shorter ways to get from Cairo to Budapest but why fly simple when you can fly longer? Anyway my flights from Paris to Budapest had already been booked earlier because of my plans to visit Gambia.

I stayed at Le Méridien Cairo Airport Hotel that has direct access to the airport. I woke up at 05.00, left my room at 05.15 and was inside the terminal at 05.30.

As is the norm at airports in Egypt there's a security control before entering the check-in area. There's a separate entrance for business class passengers.

There was nobody in front of me. The agent working there was quite strange. He worked very slowly and asked me how much cash I had (he was not working for customs). I just answered "not much".

There's also a separate check-in for business class. There were however neither employees nor passengers there. I just went to the economy class check-in where there were also no other passengers but at least there were some employees. My passport, vaccination certificate and rapid antigen results were checked and I received my boarding passes all the way to Paris.

The terminal was quite empty with only a few passengers.

There's a priority passport control lane for business class passengers but there were so few people that it didn't matter.

I followed this sign. I was not interested neither in the SmoKing Area nor the Museum but I was going to one of the lounges.

I first passed by Egyptair's Alioth Lounge where I had already been when flying to South Africa two years ago. It's not the best lounge in the world.

I went to a lounge that was closer to my departure gate F07.

I went to Egyptair's Almeisan Lounge. Egyptair is a Star Alliance member airline so Lufthansa business class passengers can use its lounges.

The lounge was nice with comfortable seating, working Wi-Fi and only a few people.

The choice of food and drinks was small. I just had had some fruit juice as I intended to have breakfast on the plane. I stayed at the lounge for about 15 minutes.

There was a second security control at the gate. All travel documents were checked again.

Priority boarding was available.

A comfy blanket was waiting at the seat.

Lufthansa flies an A321 between Cairo and Munich. This narrowbody plane has a standard Eurobusiness configuration: three regular economy seats on both sides with the middle seat blocked, economy class legroom and a movable divider between business and economy. This is normally a very poor product for business class. There was however a surprising high number rows of business class (instead of only three or four on most flights): 13 rows on the left side (rows 1 to 14, row 13 missing) and 12 on the right side (rows 2 to 14, row 13 also missing).

Seats in rows 1 to 8 and 12 to 14 are standard Eurobusiness seats. Seats 9A, 9C and 9D are also standard seats but 9F is missing. There are also no 10A, 10C or 10D seats but seat 10F has a huge legroom:

Seats 11A and 11C have the best legroom.

Seat 11D has better-than-average legroom.

Seat 11F has standard legroom.

I was first at seat 11D but then I moved to 11A. I had the best legroom on the plane:

The nearest other passenger was 5 seats away from me. There were 21 passengers in business class for a total of 44 seats. 19 of these passengers were in the first 7 rows of the cabin (the cramped part) while only one other passenger and I were in the remaining 4 rows (the better part). This and the huge legroom made my flight very comfortable despite the Eurobusiness configuration.

An expected flight time of 3 hours and 45 minutes was announced.

Push-back was at 06.52 for a scheduled departure time of 07.00.

Some nice views during taxi:

Take-off was at 07.08 from runway 23C.

Can you spot the pyramids?

Flying over the densely populated Nile Delta.

Reaching the coast of the Mediterranean Sea 16 minutes after take-off.

Breakfast service started at about this time with the distribution of a Hand Disinfection Wipe.

There was no printed menu but passengers were asked if they wanted an omelette or muesli.

I chose the omelette. Cheese, cold meat, a bread roll, jam and grapes were also served.

The omelette was surprisingly tasty. Breakfast was good.

The cabin crew was very friendly, helpful and visible in the cabin during the entire flight.

There's no built-in entertainment on this plane.

I slept from Izmir to Thessaloniki.

The amenity kit was distributed shortly before landing.

Beautiful views over the Alps in Austria.

You can see where Austria ends and Germany starts.

It was cloudy over Bavaria.

We landed at 09.50 and were at the gate at 09.55 for a scheduled arrival time of 10.10.