Review Kenya Airways, Nairobi - Amsterdam, Business Class

Paul's 211th Flight Report

Kenya Airways

Member of SkyTeam

Flight: KQ116

NBO - AMS / Boeing 787-8

Flight Time: 9 hours 10 minutes

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:

, 15 min delay

During the Flight :

Food presentation:

Food quality:

Drinks:

Service Procedure:

Amenity Kit:

Entertainment System:

Seat Quality:

Legroom:

Lavatories:

Cleanliness:

General Atmosphere:

Announcement Pilots:

Announcement Cabin:

Cabin Crew:

After the Flight :

De-Boarding:

Baggage Delivery: in Transit

—-

= 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 Nairobi and checked through, we only had to go through security control again.

Nairobi has a Sky Priority lane, which we were able to use.

There were no queues at all this morning and security was a breathe as we had almost an hour delay and only a little more than an hour left to connect.

All in all transiting in Nairobi was an easy thing and once through security we made our way to the gate which was gate 17 today.

Due to the delay we thought we wouldn not have time to go to the lounge. But as transiting took us only 10 minutes from disembarking to the gate, we still had the time (20min) for a Coffee in the lounge.

The Kenya Airways Pride Lounge is just above gate 17 and we were there in 30 Seconds.

The lounge offers a soft drink station and a coffee station as well as a all alcoholic bar. Softdrinks and alcoholic drinks were self service whilst the coffee bar was served.

There are Baristas which prepare your coffee at your liking.

They also offered a buffet with hot and cold breakfast items. The items look super fresh and appealing. What has blown us away is the fresh egg cooking station. The serve you now freshly made omelette, scrambled egg etc prepared at your liking from a chef.

All in all a great business class lounge experience.

As per boarding pass, boarding should start 45 minutes prior the indicated departure time.

We went to the gate right at the indicated boarding time and were boarded into a waiting area. Boarding into the aircraft started around 35 minutes prior departure.

Staff at the gate was okay. Nothing special or to write home about.

Also here the boarding announcement were yelled into the waiting area. No microphone. A priority boarding yelling was made and also thus time they checked the boarding passes.

At the aircraft door we were greeted by two cabin crew member.

The crew was super present in the cabin and whilst boarding.

When the majority of the passengers were on board, the crew started serving the welcome drink, consisting of 4 different choices of drinks including champagne.

After the welcome drink they distributed the menu cards and came to take the order for the breakfast main dish.

The seats were already equipped with a fluffy pillow, a comfy blanket, the mattress and the headphones.

After boarding the amenity kits were distributed. The amenity kit is good and offers the regular content. (socks, toothbrush, eye mask, ear plugs, a cromb as well as a pencil.

As a nice touch and a perfect match for Kenya Airways "the pride of Africa" are the socks with the paw prints of a lion.

Inflight:

The Kenya Airways business class is a very nice and solid business class product. The 787-8 has a total of 30 business class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration in two small cabin sections.

The seats are very comfortable and offer enough privacy and space. Unfortunately they do not have sufficient storage space at all at the seat itself.

You have to stow everything either in the overhead bins or on the middle armrest between the seats.

All business class seats are fully lie flat and you have enough shoulder space as well as legroom space.

The seat worked perfectly fine and I had a very good snooze on this flight.

After take off the cabin crew first came around and distributed some hot towels. Then they started with the breakfast service.

No trays anymore with Kenya Airways. The crew sets up everything like in first class.

The main meal consisted of fresh fruits, a joghurt, bread and croissants with butter and jam and a hot breakfast meal. They had the choice of 3 different hot meals.

Presentation of the food was very good and the quality of the food was good too.

Around 3 hours prior arrival in Amsterdam, the cabin crew passed to take the main meal order for lunch. Then they started with the lunch service.

First some hot towels were distributed and then the table was set up.

First some nuts and drinks were served as an aperitif. Then they started with lunch service.

Also here no more trays. The crew has to set up everything themselves. The first course was a fresh and rather an adventures first course, cucumber pineapple salad, they served some bread and butter along. Once you finished the first course the crew came around with the hot meals. Then they served cheese and fresh fruit and at the end some dessert.

Full drink services were offered along with all courses and a coffee / tea with digestif at the end.

The meals were nicely presented and they tasted also really good.

During the flight the crew was super present in the cabin throughout the flight and offered actively drinks. In the galley a kiosk and beverage station was set up during the flight as well.

The service on this flight, product wise and crew wise were simply top notch and absolutely excellent.

The inflight service is way way superior to many European carriers and especially the Lufthansa Group. This service in Business Class without a single tray, everything set up and every meal plated and freshly prepared in the galley is almost first class style.

Kenya Airways please please keep the service on that level like this flight. It was our 8th Long-haul flight with you and we loved it.

As already mentioned above, the cabin crew was absolutely amazing, they offered an excellent inflight service, worked together as a team, were organized and the service on both isles were completely synchronized.

You could see the passion in what they did and as a customer you could feel their hearted hospitality.

Bathrooms were checked throughout the flight and always refilled. They were always clean.

The inflight entertainment is good and the screens worked fine. They have a good size and resolution for business class. The screens are touch screens but you can also choose the handheld devices to navigate.

Kenya Airways has a good selection of movies, films and series. Unfortunately they only offer the Films etc in 4 languages.

The aircraft is not equipped with wifi.

Flight deck announcements on this flight were way to silent and not understandable.

Cabin crew announcements were great. They were completely understandable, slow and clear.

As we are checked through to Zurich this time, let's see how the transit process in Amsterdam works.

Our summary:

A very solid and good business class cabin on this Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

An excellent inflight product quality, quantity and service wise.

A phantastic cabin crew who worked with care and class.

This was the best Kenya Airways flight we have had so far (8 of them) and after this experience I would highly 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