Just a heads up if you have a flight on Egypt Air
I'm booked on this trip late Oct 2022. The first leg of my flight home is Cairo to Munich (Egyptair) then Munich to Denver (united). I booked on Egyptair to avoid the fake business class seats offered by the European carriers.
Twice in the last few weeks, the Cairo-Munich leg on Egyptair simply disappeared from my booking. I called United and got it reinstated each time (the first time with a different seat as my original seat was no longer available). I asked why this is happening and they said it was cancelled by Egyptair because of a schedule change. There was no schedule change, so they are just making up something to get me off the phone. In any case, suggest you check your flights regularly on the airline's web site, as I received no email notification about this. I'm now checking it daily.
Comments
As many know, I book early, approx 330 days early.
I check the flights on the carrier's website every few weeks to verify flight numbers, departure and arrival times, aircraft type, AND assigned seats. Sometimes the carrier will change equipment and may or may not tell us via txt or email. If they change aircraft they will reassign seats within the same cabin class. I have had to re-select our seats a number of times. In one case I had to do it when there wasn't an aircraft change!
The closer we get to our departure date I check more often.
Qatar have changed planes for two of our four flights for our upcoming tour in the past couple of weeks but we have gotten quite apologetic emails about it. We were invited to re select seats, but the last time there were only three seats left to chose. So much for booking 339 days ahead like you.
AlanS - In my experience, some airlines don't show a preview of the seat map and you can't view it until you book. Have you found a way around that?
We mostly fly Delta, which has previews. However, when a Delta itinerary includes Skyteam partner (AF, Hop, KLM) legs, the Delta site often will not show a preview of the AF seat map during or even after booking. To book our seats, I sign onto the Air France website using the Delta PNR and name (that will also show the AF PNR.) What is interesting, even after doing that the Delta website still won't show our selected seats, but the AF website does.
One leg of our upcoming XMAS Mkts flights is on AF/Hop. The Delta website still says, "This flight is operated by our partner and the seat map is not available. You can still view or change seats for any remaining flights." The Air France website shows we are in seats 2F and 2D
.
We've also flown Ethiopian and Turkish. Ethiopian had a seat selection preview but Turkish did not. With some airlines if you do a partial booking but stop before making payment you can see the seat preview- you just need to be careful
.
I learned from a forum post and one of the frequent flyer blogs that you can also sometimes see a seat preview easier by doing a partial booking through a non-airline agent (AMEX, etc.). That is what we did with Turkish. FYI, Turkish has significantly different seat selection windows based on class of ticket.
This weekend, my Cairo to Munich leg disappeared again. United has no explanation, other than Egypt Air keeps cancelling it, for some unknown reason. Three strikes and their out. I'm not going to risk it being cancelled again while I'm on tour. Sooo, I reluctantly booked my first leg home on Lufthansa (2 AM flight
). On a positive note, I'll have plenty of lounge time (shower, maybe a nap, etc.). with a 5 hour layover.
Now I understand why Egypt's heyday was more than 3000 years ago and I'd be very surprised if the GEM opens in 2022.
(edited for typo)
BKMD - Let's look for a positive spin to this. Let's say Egypt Air keeps cancelling you because they want to make sure they have room to fly the VIPs home that are coming to the GEM opening. Which of course means that it will be open for you to view.
How about this, our lovely young neighbors, two young kids were supposed to fly out this past Friday night on Lufthansa, he has a three year job in Europe, so the house has been emptied all week. Friday morning he gets a text to say their flight is cancelled, Lufthansa on strike. They flew last night.
Unless Lufthansa has their own lounge, be prepared to be severely underwhelmed with a tiny, more-like-a-waiting-room, multi-airline business lounge in Cairo. We flew out on Turkish Air at 2:45 am so the other lounges may have been closed, but the lounge we had was a dump! I think all lounges are run by the "Cairo Airport Company." FYI, pretty certain that is where I got COVID
)
AlanS If I remember correctly, there were two lounges in Cairo. I was escorted to a more VIPish lounge--it was a bit further walk. It was not comparable to the Doha/US premium lounges; however, it was very nice and spacious. I didn't eat in the lounge as I had eaten at the farewell dinner and knew I would have really good food on both of my Qatar flights and in the Doha lounge.
Looks like I'll have access to the Egyptair Alioth lounge. It';s open 24/7 and pics don't look bad:
Worst lounge I've ever expienced was Maui (OGG). Only amenity was A/C. It was like a closet with no food and you weren't permitted to bring food in!
For me it was the business class lounge in Dar Es Salam with the cockroaches hopping around the food counter.
The lounge we ended up in at Cairo was about the size of the room in BKMD's first photo and half the size of the room in his second photo. Smaller chairs were wrapped around the room arm-to-arm with chair backs against the wall. There was one row of seats arm-to-arm running down the center of the room. No end or occasional tables. There were a few power plugs, but most were broken or did not work. Not as bad as the temporary lounge we had in Nairobi- that was the worst- it reminded me of a waiting room in an old hospital or DMV!
British - as the old saying goes, those weren't bugs, they were features (or local delicacies).
After more research, it appears our (Turkish Air) lounge was in Terminal 3 and may be closed for renovation- it needed it!
Here is a video done in Feb '22 about the lounges in Departure Terminal 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DSc0Y7un2I