Review of EuroAtlantic Airways flight from Maputo to Lisbon in Economy

A few days late & a few dollars short

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report!

This is the final FR of my trip to South Africa and will cover the 10-hour long haul back to Europe on LAM Mozambique (operated by EuroAtlantic). As I alluded to in my last FR, this flight was anything but routine. In fact, this flight was so un-routine I almost gave up and bought another ticket to Europe… many times. I'll get to all that later on (be prepared, this is gonna be a looooong FR, which is accurate to the actual experience). 

And finally, as for price, I paid €345 for LIS-MPM-JNB roundtrip, which was a special promotional fare when the airline first launched this route. It's a great price, especially for a small airline like LAM but I'm not too sure if all the stress was worth it…

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

Before the flight

You know it gets interesting whenever I include this section in my FRs haha…

Around 3 weeks before the flight (or 1 week before the start of the trip, I got this email:)

Like most of you, I don't speak Portuguese so I used the (very handy) translation feature built into Gmail and this is the result: 

The translation is surprisingly accurate (at least to me) except for the 'apologies for the embarrassment' line, which I'm sure isn't right… 

But yeah, the flight got delayed by a full 48 hours, which left me with a slight dilemma. I could accept the delay and extend my trip by 2 days or rebook on another flight (which was €500 on Qatar to London). Extending the trip would cost the same amount (both in hotel bookings and to re-purchase another ticket to London from Lisbon somewhat last-minute) while hoping that LAM doesn't delay it again (you never know with small airlines and unreliable schedules). In the end, I chose to extend the trip as it'll allow me to spend some time in Johannesburg, which I (reluctantly) had planned to skip originally. 

Now comes the fun part: go on the trip and hope that the airline doesn't throw another schedule change at me. Of course that didn't happen, so a few days before the flight, my heart sank when I saw another email from LAM pop up in my inbox. Here it is: 

Thank god!! It's 'only' a time change. What I didn't mention is that this is one of three time changes that happened between the first cancellation and the actual flight. Each time I had a mini-panic attack while I waited for the email to load - thanks LAM Mozambique!! 

This time change meant that I had 3 hours between my JNB-MPM leg and this flight, which was much nicer than the 5 hours before. Sadly, this change also meant that the flight would now be 100% in darkness, ruining any chances of filming the landing…

… except… not really. You might not be surprised to hear that this isn't the end of the delays, oh no. Let's jump to the actual day of the flight and see what actually happened. 

Maputo international airport (MPM)

You join me in the duty-free section of the airport. I just came off my flight from Johannesburg, where I was greeted by a member of staff holding a transit sign (a very familiar scene from the first FR). Except, I was joined by other passengers this time and the staff seemed to know what they were doing. Hooray!  

You don't quite understand the relief I felt when the staff member checked our boarding passes and led us straight to check-in. If you haven't read what happened the first time I transited here, I'd highly recommend you do (it's quite interesting). Immigration was also stress-free. The officer spoke English this time as well so he just let me through and wished me an enjoyable flight when I showed him my boarding pass. 

Photo of the gate. There are 3 gates here in the international section. 

Yes, the entire airport is cooled by a ton of these massive AC units. It blows cold air straight into your face if you choose to sit here. I realized the terrible mistake I had made the second I sat down. 

Also, there's a leak in the roof. I hope it's just a one-off and isn't due to a lack of maintenance. 

the flight

Flight time back to Lisbon will be over 10 hours and here's our route across Africa. 

Boarding started 30 minutes late at 20:00 with complete chaos as there was no announcement (I don't think there were any speakers in the airport) and here's a photo of the IFE (which we'll have a look at later) and tray table. 

This is the same plane that took me here from Lisbon 2 weeks ago so I'm just gonna unashamedly copy-and-paste the aircraft info from that FR here: 

Type: Boeing 777-200ER
Registration: CS-TSW
First flight: 1 December 2003
Age: ~20 years
Config: C30/W24/Y239

Wearing the 30th Anniversary sticker, she was delivered to EuroAtlantic in August 2022. Before that, she flew with Alitalia for her entire life before being withdrawn by the flag carrier in 2021. 

Photo of the legroom (quite good) and the IFE box (not-so-good). 

First view out of the window. 

We pushed back 40 minutes late at 21:10 due to "operational reasons".

At this point, you're probably wondering what I was talking about when I mentioned 'the delay' on the day of the flight. Well, we pushed back, the engines started and we stopped… for an unusually long time (10+ minutes). It was at this point that the captain informed us that there was a slight issue with the number 2 (right) engine and they were trying to diagnose the problem. This took 30 minutes before the engines got shut off, a sign that we were not going anywhere. 

Getting towed back to the gate at 22:00 - 50 minutes after pushback and 90 minutes late. 

During this time, the air conditioning was switched off - this is done during engine start as the bleed (compressed) air for the AC is needed to start the engines. This became a problem after 50 minutes as there was no air circulation during that time, resulting in the cabin being sweltering hot (it must've reached over 30°C). Passengers started getting up and fanning themselves with the safety card, as you can see here. It felt quite suffocating at times. 

I feel a bit sorry for the crew. They tried their best and started handing out water. I can't imagine how difficult it must've been to handle 200+ annoyed passengers while walking around the cabin in this heat. 

This lasted for another 30 minutes before the doors were disarmed and we were told to disembark, now 2 hours late. I've never been so happy to leave a plane in my life and I really wanted to just run up to one of the AC units in the terminal and just stand there for 10 minutes haha. 

But now comes the impossible question, when (if ever) are we gonna actually leave. I have a 15-hour layover in Lisbon (I wanted to go plane spotting after landing) and I'm prepared to buy another ticket on the TAP flight tomorrow morning if this flight shows no signs of going (I mean, I don't know if they'll be able to fix a 777 at midnight in Mozambique). At least I'll get EU-261 compensation (the flight is operated by EuroAtlantic, a Portuguese airline). 

Thankfully, that didn't happen (or else you wouldn't be reading this FR). At around 23:40, I saw some commotion with people walking back to the gate. Of course, there was no announcement so I had no idea what was happening. I decided to join them just to see what was going on… only to find the flight was boarding again. Huge kudos to EuroAtlantic and the staff at Maputo - I genuinely didn't think they'd get the problem sorted, especially so late in Mozambique. I just wished someone could've told us, especially those far away who wouldn't have seen the commotion at the gate. 

Pushback again at exactly midnight - 3 hours and 30 minutes late. Annoyingly, this is just short of the 4-hour threshold for getting EU-261 compensation. It's also exactly 1 hour later than the original scheduled departure time (at 23:00) so that time change email ended up being redundant. 

It's wet and dark, so there's absolutely nothing interesting to see apart from that speck of light that is the terminal building so I'll just skip the takeoff. 

I feel like I already wrote a full FR but it's only the start of the flight haha…

Around an hour after takeoff, the crew came around with dinner (at 1 AM). The options were fish or meat. I have no idea what the meat is so I picked the fish as the lesser of two evils (it smelled terrible). On the last flight with EuroAtlantic, I described the food as 'borderline inedible'. Well… this one just got upgraded to 'actually inedible'. It smelled terrible and it tasted terrible. There was no seasoning apart from (probably) salt. It doesn't matter how long the flight is or how hungry I am, there's no way I'm gonna eat that… sorry. 

Oh and did I mention that the fish had an actual, HUGE, piece of bone inside?! It's probably an accident with the little care shown in the preparation of this meal. But it's a serious choking hazard, especially for small kids who wouldn't see it with the cabin being so dark. 

In the box there's a feta cheese salad (it was so salty I may as well be eating salt), a bun, and a fresh fruit tart (the only thing that I didn't hate). Like, they clearly showed no care when preparing these meals and just did it as cheaply as possible. But if you're gonna do that, why pick fish? Isn't pasta or just vegetables cheaper? If you're gonna serve people fish, at least do the bare minimum and make sure any bones are removed. This is more than 'it tastes bad', it's genuinely a risk for passengers (especially if you don't warn them). The last thing you'd want is for a kid to be choking on your food 30,000ft in the air. This is quite concerning. 

But anyway, after that, I slept for most of the flight and woke up just as the sun was rising over the Sahara. 

And finally, let's have a look at the contents of the IFE. 

I already did an IFE review on my outbound flight but I'll just quickly repeat everything again. There is a grand total of 15 movies and about the same number of TV shows consisting of popular Western/Hollywood options. There are some recent options but some are quite old (I never realized Interstellar is over 10 years old until Kévin pointed it out to me haha). There's also no moving map available. 

Oh and by the way, on my outbound flight, on every seat is a bag with a blanket, amenity kit, and headphones (see that FR for more details). On this flight, I only got a blanket. I'm not sure if headphones are even available if you asked but I always bring my own on long hauls so it's not a big problem for me. 

Around 2 hours before landing, the crew came around with breakfast. It was some fresh fruit, a muffin, and a savory bun/sandwich with a piece of chicken in the middle. It was unusual, but it was edible (tasted quite nice actually). This was a lifesaver as I had eaten nothing for 14-15 hours aside from the 2 cereal bars I brought with me from the Q400 flight. 

Starting our descent into a very cloudy Lisbon - the delay means that I'll get a day landing here, although you can't see much anyway with all the clouds. 

It also means that my plan of plane spotting here is gone. I might just head to the city and hope I don't get soaked. 

On final approach. 

Welcome back to Portugal! We arrived 3 hours and 30 minutes late. 

Parked at the remote stand. 

lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (lis)

Walking to immigration. 

Immigration took around 20 minutes with a load of people (mainly Americans) getting stuck at the automatic barriers as their passports wouldn't scan (I mentioned that when I was leaving). There were no staff members to help them so their only option was to wave to a distant officer in a booth. 

Baggage reclaim area. My bag was already there when I got here. 

One final photo of the entrance to the terminal. I have like 10 hours here in Lisbon before my flight to London. I can't plane spot as it's raining outside so I'll probably get a bus to the city and… find somewhere indoors to go… I guess? 

That concludes my South Africa series! If you thought this FR was long, just imagine how long and stressful it was for me to fly it haha. I'm just happy to have made it back to Europe in one piece (and without booking a separate ticket!)

Visiting South Africa (and Eswatini) was an absolute blast. I've loved every part of it, it was fascinating not only to read and see the country's rich (and troubled) history, but I also was so fortunate to be able to talk to people who experienced it firsthand. Honestly, people there are so friendly and it's amazing hearing people talk about what it's like living there. I'm still in contact with some of those people and despite all the country's issues (safety being the main one), I'd love to go back someday. 

Thanks for reading this extra-long FR and I'll see you soon for another trip!!