Review Kenya Airways Business Class, Nairobi to Amsterdam
Flight Time: 8 hours 50 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: , 5 min early
, 5 min early
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:
—-
= 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 would have been able to use. The Sky Priority has only 1 lane open with a long queue and economy had around 8 lanes open with much shorter queues. So
we used one of these.
It would be great if they could increase the priority lanes especially in the morning with lots of inbound flights and connecting passengers.
All in all transiting in Nairobi was an easy thing and once through security we made our way to the prime class lounge which is just above gate 17 which today will also be our gate for the
flight to Amsterdam.
Lounge:
he 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 we love about this lounge, is the fresh egg cooking station. The serve you now freshly
made omelette, scrambled egg etc prepared at your liking from a chef.
The staff in the lounge and especially at the reception are awesome and super friendly and helpful.
All in all a great business class lounge experience.
Gate:
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 only a few minutes later.
Staff at the gate was okay. Nothing special or to write home about.
Also here the boarding announcement were made vocally without a public announcement system. A priority boarding was made according procedures and also the boarding passes were checked if the correct group was boarding.
Getting on Board:
At the aircraft door we were greeted by a friendly cabin crew member.
The crew was not present in the cabin at all whilst boarding. Not a single cabin crew was greeting the passengers in Business Class or would have assisted with questions.
When the majority of the passengers were on board, the crew appeared from the gallies and started serving the welcome drink, consisting of 4 different choices of drinks including champagne.
No Hello, welcome on board, no smiles no nothing.
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 and the mattress.
The headphones and amenity kits were prepared on the little compartment next to the tv screens.
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.
Last time in November I wrote: "No trays anymore with Kenya Airways. The crew sets up everything like in first class". Well apparently this is up to the crew on how they want to make the
service.
On today's KQ116 the crew set up the table with a tablecloth and then distributed the full size tray which contained fresh fruits, a joghurt, bread and croissants with butter and jam. Once
you were done, they collected the empty china and brought the hot breakfast meal on a plate.
We 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.
The crew then put the tablecloth and started the service with the fullsize tray. It contained the delicious first course with grilled vegetables with babaganoush as well as bread and butter.
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.
The dessert, cheese and fresh fruits were served classic from a service trolley.
Full drink services were offered along with all courses and a separate coffee / tea service with digestif at the end was carried out.
When we gave the crew the feedback about their robotic behaviour and not interacting or smiling, they changed immediately.
The meals once more were nicely presented and they tasted really good. Catering ex Nairobi has definitely improved and is much much better than the catering out of Europe.
During the flight the crew was passed 2-3 times in the cabin and offered actively drinks.
In addition you always had the chance to help yourself. In the galley a nice looking kiosk and beverage station was set up during the flight for passengers self-service.
Compared to our last flight on KQ116 in November 2023, the service on today's flight was good but inflight procedure wise and cabin crew wise way way below our last flight.
As said, it was good, but the crew was super passionless, no smiles and no love to details. No hospitality thinking and no interaction with the customers at all.
They did their job and that was about it. Also the purser on this flight was that way and so the leader didn't act as an example.
Last time we wrote: "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."
Well I can only say consistency, consistency, consistency! The cabin crew makes the difference!
Bathrooms were checked throughout the flight and always refilled. They were always clean. The crew did an amazing job here.
Inflight Entertainment / Wifi / Announcements:
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 very clear and well understandable.
Cabin crew announcements were to fast and way to quiet, hence it was difficult to understand them.
After the Flight:
Immigration in Amsterdam was okay, no queues and no waiting time. Selfscanning gates were available and open.
Baggage delivery as always a disaster in Amsterdam. Doesn't matter who the handling agent is.
The Aircraft arrived at the stand at 15:20 local time. First bags arrived on the belt 25 minutes after arrival on the parking stand but economy bags arrived first.
First priority bags arrived 30 minutes on the belt, long after economy bags and our bags as usual arrived last 40 minutes after arrival.
Our summary:
A solid and good ground product (security, lounge, gate) in Nairobi.
A very solid and good business class cabin on this Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
An great inflight product quality, quantity and service wise, but the crew on this flight lowered it with their service compared to our last flight.
An passionless cabin crew with a useless purser. No smiles, no interaction, no attention to detail, no hearted hospitality. They offered exactly what they had to do like robots. During the
second service we gave the cabin crew the feedback about the above and the crew member on. Our site opened up and changed 180°
This was now our 12th international business class flight with KQ and we haven't had any consistency.
The crew makes the difference of a good, great or bad flight.
A solid product like everyone else offers.
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