Are they really using a plane with the reg MIDO? Hilarious. :D

Was wondering the same thing. 4-5 hours in the back of a 320 doesn't sound much like fun.

Will keep fingers crossed.

especially if it was transferred from Tottenham Moscow to the Egyptian route. I hear MIDO tends to go tech quite often though.

Same here. I have booked a M fare on an empty plane (C9 D9 J9 Y9... Q9) hoping to get rid of some of my Gold vouchers. I assumed they take GUVs on the CAI route, otherwise would have booked C as making my wife sit in Y on a 5 hour flight is a sure way to get a divorce.

It hadn't occurred to me that they wouldn't take them, merely that C loads might be too high for them to be of any use. Looks like I'm still at C9 outwards, C5 return, for flights leaving in 8 days, so I hope that all should be well. No idea about D and J...

Yep, I did this flight in C both ways when it launched.

The C seats are the same as the Moscow ones - a big squashy leather armchair. It doesn't lie flat, but it's pretty good with the large pillows and blankets that are onboard. The pitch seemed fine to me - it's certainly better than that in BA CE, but the fit of large biz seats in an A320 seemed strange - it's odd to be in a single isle like that.

Food is pretty good - there is just one meal, spread over four courses that come out over the first two hours. Be warned that service is FIFO, so if you are in the back rows, you won't get your first choice, and it can be over an hour before you get your first drink. Wine and fizz flow freely.

Entertainment comes in the form of the same boxes as Moscow - a stand alone screen that plays a dozen or so films. The batteries on these tend to run down after about 2 hours or so: the crew have some spares, but to make sure you get to the end of your film, watch the film first before watching any of the TV shows. This box is annoying as you need to rest it on you knees: It's virtually impossible to eat dinner and watch the film. Only with the spare batteries do you get a stand.

The lounge at CAI is hillarious. It's after security, and on the top floor. Its separated by a rope from the coffee bar, and that's it. You can however enter the EgyptAir VIP rooms at the back of the lounge, which are decked out like an English country house drawing room - vastly over the top. There are a few nibbles and soft drinks or coffee - but be warned the lounge is, horror of horrors... dry.

For a beer you have two options. Either go down the unmarked stairs at the back of the lounge, which goes to the coffee bar downstairs. They will sell you a small tinny of beer for 20 pounds (Egyptian) or you can go to duty free, who will only sell you beer priced in US dollars. At the current rate of exchange, this can be cheaper.

Enjoy Cairo! Its an experience.

cairo
 

Lorkers, thank you for that report. I too am perplexed by the huge business seats in an A320. I popped my details into checkmytrip.com and it shows only 20 business seats and only 2 occupied, i.e. mine and the old mans :)

The lounge at CAI sounds 'interesting' to say the least. I will report back after the trip in April to see if anything has changed by then.

Gordie

Thanks for all that - I shall take it as reference! Off in a week, so will see how it all is. Am not much of a film watcher on planes, thankfully...

I found this thread last week while I was researching, so I figured I'd update it. I used two GUVs without any hassle at all last week coming CAI-LHR. The staff took a good fifteen minutes to process them but they were helpful and rather nice. I was a bit worried but there was plenty of space and I saw at least one other GUV in the stack of cash receipts/upgrade receipts the guy at the counter held in his hand.

The business class was nothing to write home about (like any US domestic carrier's biz class) but it beat being stuck in the center row in coach.

The food was a smoked chicken salad to start and another hard-to-identify chicken dish that was regardless, tasty.

I used 2 GUVs each way LHR-CAI and CAI-LHR last week as well. Outbound flight was C9 and inbound was C4, but all upgrades were cleared at checkin although it did take 10-15 min for the staff to process them.

Thanks for the update. ^

Just to satify my curiosity, which domestic US carrier has 2+2 seating at 50" pitch in business class ?

The bmi seats I had on my flights were much better than US airlines' domestic first class seats. Not as comfortable at UA's old international business class seats though. I found them to be at the same comfort level as SQ's light blue regional business class seats (their worst business class seats) on the non-AVOD 777s.

Is that a flip out video screen I spy in the bottom of the shot? Does that mean that the hand held units have now gone?

Oh, and hows the lounge now? Is it still as it was when I was there 18 months back (namely, dry)?

I had flip out video screens for my trip LHR-CAI on Dec 3rd.

As meticulously documented in the FAQ, all the midhaul 320s and 321s have the stowed PTVs, with the exception of the 3 bmi-configured ('leather') 320s (MIDO, T and Y)