FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Guide to BA at Cairo airport - ex-CAI trips
Old May 7, 2018 | 5:21 am
  #85  
nldogbert
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Join Date: Feb 2004
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Quick flight and airport experience review

Hi all,

I did this flight yesterday from CAI in CW. Felt slightly disappointed from service point and the quality of food was questionable. First cabin was sadly not opened due to CW being wide open (they did have to upgrade a few pax from WT+ and WT due to overbooking - as informed by check-in agent).

In general catering was in my opinion (first time flying this route in CW) was rather poor. I understand the constrains of catering from a cultural point of view, but I would have expected that BA should adjust the menu to reflect that. Don't understand why they would call it an "English Breakfast" when there was nothing "English" about it. I would have just termed it "Full Hot Breakfast" and description that it came with (chicken?) sausages, steak and scrambled egg.
- The steak was the only good thing about it, scrambled egg was too salty, the (chicken) sausage was well questionable.
- smoothie listed on the menu was again questionable - was watery and did not really tasted as described on the menu, it was more like some flavoured milk

Crew - I am not sure if this is MixFleet or normal crew - not sure how to identify. But I found the senior crew members (at least from age point) much better. I had one younger FA serving my side of the aisle and I don't remember seeing any smile from her even when communicating and not really a response after saying thank you.

However basically after the breakfast service - you did not see any crew at all checking on pax if they wanted anything from time to time or even after breakfast - additional drink round. Everyone was busy in the galley except along the aisle and this was with quite a number of pax not sleeping. This was the situation until landing which I find strange, as this is the attitude which I expect from IB, TP or AZ, but not from BA. I am not one who likes to push the attendant call if I can get up without disturbing, so went to get some drinks and snack myself.

I was also surprised that the amenity kit on this flight was still the old washbag and the blanket was a thin brown one (never had such a blanket before in CW)

I used the First toilet, and the CSM (a rather younger chap), did come and discreetly tell me that since First cabin was not in used, I could not use the First toilet. [Pro: he did it discreetly; Cons:Why can't pax use the First toilet if the cabin is not in used?]

As for the electronics ban - indeed they are checked before boarding and you can still check in your cabin bag during the process if needed. (So for those that still need to work on your laptop in the lounge, you are can, but I suspect they don't really encourage this).
I did not use the lounge as I knew it was nothing, so I arrived about 1h15m before the flight (was staying at the LeM). - though you should take care that immigration can get crowded due to the AF flight leaving an hour + later. However boarding started only about 40 mins before departure (but I guess this is depending on the flight pax load).

Cheers!
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