I live in Cairo, and I just went on a five-day trip to Ethiopia, just for the fun of it. I've never been to sub-Saharan Africa and have always wanted to, and Ethiopia is the closest place from Egypt with the most to see.

Fortunately, ET has a deal whereby you fly to ADD internationally, and you get huge discounts (like 75% off) when flying domestic routes to the four "historic cities": Bahar Dar (BJR), Gonder (GDQ), Axum (AXU), and Lalibela (LLI). I only had time to visit three, so after doing some research I decided to skip Axum.

In general, I was very excited to fly ET, because I keep hearing they're one of the very best in Africa. Who better to fly on my first trip to sub-Saharan Africa?

I bought the ticket from the Ethiopian Airlines office at the Nile Hilton in CAI. The woman who helped me there, while very sweet, was a ditz and a half. When I was booked to go to GDQ and wanted instead to go to BJR, she kept insisting that there was no room on the flight. She kept saying that ET 128 (ADD-BJR) and ET 128 (ADD-GDQ) were two separate flights, and it was "just a coincidence" that they had the same flight number! I kept trying to explain to her that I was already booked ADD-GDQ, and just wanted to get off on an earlier stop, and that it was the same plane making two stops, but she insisted she was right. She was really clueless. She also told me CAI-ADD is a B767 (it's a 73G). Eventually she booked my ticket, but using my nickname, not my passport name. When I caught the mistake and asked her to change it, she changed it on the paper tickets, but not the reservation. Anyway, I'll get to that later.

So, finally last Thursday came around, and the trip began. The first flight I took was:

Thursday, July 21
ET 441
CAI-ADD, via KRT
B737-700NG
5:10pm

Driving up to the outside of the int'l section of CAI, Terminal 1.



Once at the check-in counter, I was in for a huge shock. The woman at the counter said I hadn't reconfirmed, and therefore I couldn't get on the flight!! I couldn't believe it. I slowly got angry. When I showed her the printout from the ditzy travel agent, she saw that the printout had my nickname, whilst the paper ticket had my full name. She said "oh, yeah, it's reconfirmed under your nickname." My last name is not so common, and my nickname and passport name are similar, so I can't believe she couldn't put two-and-two together. Whatever. So the stupid ditz screwed up big time. This name issue would dog me the entire trip, until I was able to make it to an ET office in Gonder to put my reservation back under my passport name. Still, I think mandatory reconfirmation is the dumbest thing ever, and here's a civ av thread I started about that: Mandatory Reconfirmation: What A Pain! (by NYCFlyer Jul 26 2005 in Civil Aviation)>

Also, the check-in woman wouldn't let me take my suitcase on board, she made me weigh it and check it. It easily fits in the overhead bins of all mainline jets, yet she insisted that it wouldn't. Wouldn't I know it if my own big didn't fit? I told her I had flown on many 737s before. Didn't matter. The bag weighed in at 10kg on the scale, and their hand luggage limit is 7kg. So, I had to check it. So far, I was pretty underwhelmed at Ethiopian Airlines.
Anyway, once checked in, and having apologized for raising my voice at the check-in lady, I went through immigration and got to the departure concourse. By that time, it was practically boarding time.

Here's a view of the plane from the departure concourse. There are no jetways in T1, only in T2, which is ironic because T1 is newly renovated and T2 is old and ratty:



Here is a view of sitting in the waiting area, before boarding the bus out to the plane:



5:10pm, the departure time, came and went. The flight crew came through the waiting area, in beautiful dark green outfits. Sorry I have no pics of them. Some of the classiest "golden age" uniforms I've seen. The female f/a's looked particularly elegant. But the reason we weren't boarding was because the shuttle bus never showed up. Unbelievable. At 5:25pm, 15 minutes after scheduled departure, the bus showed up.

View of the airside of the terminal from the shuttle bus:



Views of the plane from the shuttle bus:





Then, we filed off the bus and walked up the stairs to the plane. I love walking on and off planes, w/o jetways. You get such a feeling of "arrival," and this, too, evokes thoughts of the golden age.

I was in seat 19F, on the right-hand window, in the fourth or fifth to last row. I definitely wanted a window seat, especially for the stop in KRT! I knew it would likely be my first and last time to ever see Sudan. Much as I love traveling, I won't be getting there anytime soon. I knew that with a 5:10pm departure, it would still be light out in KRT by our scheduled 7:45pm arrival. Except we didn't exactly leave at 5:10 (grrrr)...

Great angle of the plane while boarding. Another reason I love boarding this way, is the unique angles.



I was one of the first off the bus and on the plane. The interior is mostly blue, nice but nothing special:



Looking forward in the plane during the video safety demonstration:



The plane load was about 90% full. Fortunately, the middle seat next to me was one of the few that were empty. On the aisle on my left was a nice woman from Senegal, who was transfering in ADD on to DKR. Behind me were three women who were going on to N'Djamena, Chad! The pax were mostly African, a few Arab Egyptians mixed in. I was one of three or four caucasians.

After the safety demo, the pilot apologized for the 30 minute delay, saying that "we were not met by the gate agents in a timely manner." I assume he meant the shuttle bus, which arrived late. Whether it's ET's fault or CAI airport's operational ineptness, I thought it was a pretty lousy reason for delay.

Anyway, by 6:05pm, we were charging down the runway, bound for Khartoum, Sudan and then Addis Abeba, Ethiopia.

Here's one of the aging MS 735's - with no livery or tail design - lined up behind us, bound for LXR. I flew that exact plane, "Karnak," to ASW a month ago.



And we're off! This is about 10 seconds after full lift-off:



About 20 seconds after lift-off. Note the Egypt Air Force C-130s lined up.



And this is about 30 seconds after lift-off, as we starting turning south towards KRT:



About 30 minutes into flight, here's our route map, heading south down the Nile, and along the Red Sea coast:



One hour into flight - dinnertime! Food was great Hot meal of meatballs and vegetables, salad, biscuit, bread and cheese, chocolate cake, and usual selection of alc and non-alc beverages. Interestingly, there was no choice in the meal, although I saw other people had pasta, not meatballs.



No movie on this flight, but they showed....Tom and Jerry reruns?! WTF?!



They also showed some horrible American sitcom called 'Becker,' with Ted Danson. On the return trip, they showed the movie "In Good Company," which I hear is pretty good, but I was too tired to watch it.

Anyway....I was very annoyed because our 30 minute delay up front was just enough for it to be too dark to see Khartoum when we got there. The return trip had us in KRT at 3am, so forget it. We got to KRT around 8:30pm, just past sunset. Damn. Here is a lousy picture of Khartoum, five minutes before landing:



We were on the ground in KRT for close to an hour. The majority of the pax got off. So obviously, ET has Fifth Freedom rights between Egypt and Sudan. A lot of people got on the plane, but not as many as those who left. I found an old copy of the daily state-run Zimbabwe newspaper, and read some ridiculous editorial about how the U.S. deliberately spreads AIDS in Zimbabwe by distributing contaminated condoms. Whatever...

There were a number of planes on the ground in KRT, but none of the photos turned out well. A few Sudan Airways 737s, and a lot of UN planes - C130s and BAE 146s. The only other airliner was a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane, maybe a 777 or 767, I couldn't see too well. It was boarding. Condi Rice was in KRT that day, but I couldn't see anything resembling a USG or US Military plane. Maybe there's another airport or military base somewhere, but I doubt it. About 15 minutes before we left KRT, the SV plane took off.

Sudan Airways staff cleaning the plane during the stop:



Finally, we were back in the air heading to ADD. The route map:



And then we landed. 90 minute flight from KRT to ADD. Pretty uneventful. We had a snack of cold sandwiches and a drink. And then we landed. And ADD is great airport! As some may know, it was built two years ago, next to the old airport. It reminded me a lot of ATH, if anyone has been there. ADD had got to be one of the best, most modern airports in Africa. I was very impressed. No jetways on arrival, though. And only the higher-yielding flights (i.e. not KRT-CAI) get jetways on departure. But that aside, it's a top-notch, single-terminal airport.

I have one very lousy photo of the inside of the airport. Apologies for the poor quality. Taking pictures at ADD is illegal without special permission, and I obviously didn't want to get into any trouble, so I took a very rushed picture of the departures area, this was the best I could:



Once in Ethiopia, I spent the first night in ADD, but I got up early the next morning to catch my flight to Bahar Dar. Most ET domestic flights are done on F-50s, with a few small routes on Twin Otters. All of mine were F-50s. Over the next five days I took one flight each day: ADD-BJR, BJR-GDQ, GDQ-LLI, LLI-ADD, and finally ADD-KRT-CAI. Photos from these five flights would be repetitive, but here's one shot of Addis, shortly after takeoff for BJR:



And here's a shot of the F-50, after deplaning in BJR.



In general, I would say ET is very good, but they're not a first-class carrier like SQ or LH. The service and food were good, but I hated having to re-confirm my flights every day, and having to find local ET offices in Bahar Dar, Gonder, Lalibela, and Addis in which to do so. This seems like a relic from the pre-technology days, and it doesn't make sense that every part of ET's operations is so modern, except for that. I resented being told I couldn't bring my bag on the plane - no other airline has not let me bring this particular suitcase on board. And the times for the domestic flights kept changing. My LLI-ADD flight was scheduled for 11:40am, but at 9pm the night before it was moved to 9:30am. They called my hotel manager to tell him this, but only because the guy at the office knew him personally.
Also, four out of my six flights were late. Only my ADD-BJR and ADD-CAI flights were ontime. BJR-GDQ was 45 minutes late; GDQ-LLI four hours late, partially due to weather; and LLI-ADD an hour, after the 9:20 scheduled departure. Also, the domestic routes are all triangles, or more. My LLI-ADD route took me first to AXU, then to GDQ, before Addis. All domestic flights begin and end in ADD, and make big loops with 2-4 stops.

The return trip, ADD-CAI, was fine. They said we'd be on the ground in KRT for 25 minutes, but we were there for an hour. I was stuck in a middle seat, which sucked, and it was in the row before the exit row, so it couldn't recline! Double suck. This was after the check-in guy apologized for putting me in a middle seat, but specifically said he'd give me an exit row to compensate. Whoops. This time, though, I did sweet talk my way into bringing my suitcase onboard, though I did get a lot of pushback from three different staffers.

I had a fantastic time in Ethiopia, saw all sides of it - rural and urban, rich and poor, met great people including Ethiopians and westerners, saw the day life and the nightlife, the ancient and the modern. I only regret how little time I had there. I HIGHLY recommend going there. Incredible sites, most of which feel untouched and unvisited. But that's all for a different kind of trip report...

Hope you enjoyed this, would love to hear any comments.