Review Ethiopian Airlines, Addis Abeba-Johannesburg / Business Class
General Impression: 
Before the Flight :
Check-in Process: N/A in transit
Security Control :
Lounge:
Information:
Boarding @ Gate:
Staff @ these points:
Boarding in Cabin:
Welcome Drinks:
Punctuality: , 5 min delay
, 5 min delay
During the Flight :
Food presentation:
Food quality:
Special award for the Ethiopian local food : 
Drinks:
Service Procedure:
Amenity Kit:
IFE System:
Seat Quality:
Legroom:
Lavatories:
Cleanliness:
General Atmosphere:
Announcement Pilots:
Announcement Cabin:
Cabin Crew:
After the Flight :
De-Boarding:
Baggage Delivery:
—-
= bad, a lot of work needs to be done
= poor, you will be busy with corrections
= good & normal, nothing special
= high level, but the icing on the cake is missing
= topnotch, leave me here!
= Half a Point/sheep
—-
On the Ground:
As we were in transit in Addis Abeba and checked through to Johannesburg, we only had to go through security control again.
Addis has a Star Gold / Priority lane, which we were able to use. Never the less, there was a queue at the Security Checkpoint as it was rush hour and it took us around 10 minutes. The
security check itself was a mess. Trays to put your personal belongings in were just thrown on the floor from an agent and you had to get them yourself.
Transiting in Addis was an easy thing and once through security we made our way to the Sheba Cloud 9 Business Class Lounge.
The Lounge is new, modern and has enough seating availabilities. It is divided in many different areas.
The lounge offers a few soft drink and coffee stations as well as a all alcoholic bar.
They also offered a main buffet with hot and cold breakfast items as well as two smaller buffets with cold breakfast items only.
Very special is the Ethiopian Coffee corner where you can enjoy a freshly prepared Ethiopian coffee.
All in all a good business class lounge experience.
Boarding started around 30 minutes prior departure. On the boarding pass was indicated 45 minutes.
There are no boarding announcements made at all at Addis Abeba airport. Priority boarding was conducted according procedures.
Staff at the gate was just doing their job but otherwise nothing special.
At the aircraft door we were greeted by a cabin crew member.
The crew was very friendly at the door and was very present in the cabin whilst boarding. It was completely different to our previous flight. The crew was fresh, smiling, talking and
interacting with the guests.
Very soon after boarding they offered the welcome drink, consisting of orange juice and champagne.
The seats were already equipped with headphones and the crew then passed with the menu cards.
On every seat there was also a fluffy pillow and a blanket as well as a water bottle and an amenity kit.
Once everyone was on they passed as well with hot towels.
Inflight:
The business class on this Ethiopian Airlines Airbus A350 is a completely other story compared to our previous flight with the Boeing 777.
It is a very nice and solid business class product. The Airbus A350 has a total of 30 business class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration in one section between door 1 and 2.
The seats are much more comfortable and offer more privacy and space. There is also more storage space at the seat itself.
All business class seats are fully lie flat and you have enough shoulder space as well as legroom space.
The seat worked perfectly fine on this flight.
After take off the cabin crew performed an aperitif service with two different snacks.
The aperitif was followed by the duty free service and then they came to take the order for your main meal choice.
The main service on this flight was a big lunch service which started around 3,5 hours prior arrival. It consisted of two different starters, a Salad followed by 5 different Ethiopian dishes
served from a service cart. The Ethiopian food was simply heaven. Super delicious and super tasty. Careful, should you try, you have to love spicy food.
After that, the main was served. You also had some fresh warm bread and butter.
For the mains, you were able to choose from 4 different mains and then cheese and dessert was offered again from the trolley together with tea and coffee.
The cabin crew on this flight was stellar. They were super present in the cabin, interacted with the passengers and offered a fantastic service. They had attention to details and were always
a step ahead. They pampered their passengers as if it would be first class. It was amazing to see and experience such a top notch inflight service.
You could see that they liked what they were doing and had fun as a team.
A complete difference to the previous flight.
Bathrooms were checked throughout the flight and always refilled. They were always clean.
The inflight entertainment is not comparable to the Boeing 777 we had before. The screens are huge in size and worked perfectly fine. They had a good resolution and the touch screens worked
well as well as the handheld devices to navigate.
The selection of movies, films and series was good.
The aircraft was equipped with WiFi and we were given a free code to be used during the entire flight. Internet worked well and you were also able to watch films and YouTube.
Announcements on this flight were better too but also not the cherry on the cake. Why is it so difficult to make a good, understandable announcement? Why are the other crew members not giving feedback if someone talks to fast or the volume isn't good.
Baggage delivery in Johannesburg was as always a perfect thing. First bags arrived on the belt 20 minutes after arrival and priority bags were delivered first.
Our summary:
A very solid and good business class product on this flight with Ethiopian Airlines. The flight was not comparable to the previous flight from Milan.
The seats are not the newest model either but much much better and still good and the inflight service was top notch.
The food was delicious and fresh and the crew did a fantastic job.
It just showed once more, that the crew does the biggest difference to a product.
Based on this experience we would reuse Ethiopian Airlines and can recommend them.
Notes:
- Paul the Sheep does not get any benefits from the Hotels/Airlines etc.
- Paul will always pay for the services in order to be able to rate freely and truly about the experiences.
-If you are interested in more details, please send me a private message and I will be happy to share