ADD overnight
 

Many posts have addressed the long overnight transit at Addis Ababa airport. Here is my experience just last week.
On my onward journey by Ethiopian Airlines to Kilimanjaro via Addis Ababa, my bid for business class was accepted. However, when I landed in ADD for the 13hr stopover, it was nothing but a circus.
1. Scores of people were lining yp for Hotel and transfer vouchers. There was no order. It ttok for ever, at least over an hour. At one point I even thought of just seeking a corner to sleep off as it was a long journey.
2. Some people managed to "talk their way", "bribe" and "whetever else" to secure hotel vouchers.
Finally, an official took notice of me and it took less than one minute to get the voucher, Rest was a breeze.
The return journey by economy class was a lot easier. The agent at JRO itself gave a voucher and I was out of ADD in less than 5 minutes for my Hotel.

On a different note, the flight itself was wonderful, caring and friendly FA in both directions. it appeared that Ethiopian Airlines keeps the plane much warmer but the speed of the plane was much slower.

Typically they do give the vouchers to you at the outstation so you don't have to mess with it at ADD. Unfortunately as you've now seen, that counter can be a complete mess at times. I've seen it totally dead a few times and like a circus most others.

I was at the transfer-desk and hotel-voucher desk of Addis airport this morning around 8am due to a misconnect. There really was no line (one person ahead of me). After reading all the horror stories here I was pleasantly surprised.

So .. I guess the lesson is that 8am is a good time.

There is no situation other than a missed connection whereby a passenger should ever have to pick up their voucher in Addis. All outstations are required to issue these vouchers at originating station to pax with a scheduled STPC eligible layover. This is intentionally done to reduce the congestion at the assistance desk in Addis.

Always ask for the voucher at your originating station. They usually have these already prepared and sitting in a pile with the supervisor or at the ticketing desk. IF they don't, it gives them time to prepare it and get it to you at the boarding gate. Either way, you avoid the Addis scrum.

I recently flew in Y on ET DAR-ADD-WDH in bucket H. On check in at DAR I was asked to pay a supplementary fee for HOTAC in ADD. It was, iirc, less than $100 but not much less.

I refused. I said I would ask for VoA and sort myself out or just sleep in airport. When I got to ADD I went to ET desk and was put in Zola International Hotel and did not pay for it as ET coughed up.

Zola is basic but OK. Worst hotel ET have put me in but I do not often fly them. It was a bit of a scrum at the ET desk at ADD in early evening.

That's quite unusual, unless something changed recently, all overnight or stopovers over a certain amount of hours (10 I think) are eligible for a hotel voucher. I've even done it where my connecting flight wasn't actually the first available and they still gave me a voucher without question.

This might be something DAR specific. The only times I've actually been asked to pay in advance where I'd usually be eligible for complimentary STPC have been in DAR. In one case, I was then given free STPC in Addis, but charged in the other. These were both a while ago though.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by this. That temperature was high in the cabin and the plane flew at low speed?

To add insult to injury, I had taken my disabled 73yr old mother on an adventurous overland trip through Angola culminating in our arrival in Windhoek.

I needed to return to Windhoek at the end of our adventure (which was to continue) but she had an open jaws on EK into LAD and allowing her to eventually escape Africa on EK via DAR.

On arrival in Windhoek by car, we wanted to get from WDH to DAR. As we did not know when we might arrive in Windhoek due to Angolan roads, I left ticketing of this flight to last minute and on arrival in Windhoek quichly bought two one way Y tickets on SA WDH-JNB-DAR. As my mother was wheelchair bound I wanted an overnight in JNB so decided it was best to buy two singles ideally rather than faff around trying to buy a single for her and return for me at last minute with both pax on same outward itinerary.

We flew uneventfully to DAR via JNB but my mother insisted on paying for my flight back from DAR to WDH. So I chose ET as it was cheapest option. On the outbound it was cheaper too but I paid a premium for SA as my mother is wheelchair bound and I felt SA in JNB would provide a better service than ET in ADD for pax in WCHR.

So she bought me my H class ET ticket DAR-ADD-WDH via Expedia. But when she got home her credit card company informed her that they had blocked several payments she had made in Africa as they deemed them suspicious including a payment to Expedia for an intra-Africa flight.

I was informed of this just as I was checking in for my ET flight from DAR to WDH so figured I may have to pay up myself, although I was already ticketed. But no.

The HOTAC was provided in ADD as earlier explained and I made it to WDH and ET credited my Asiana account with miles. Yet my mother assures me she was never charged for the flight by Expedia!



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