EgyptAir 787-9 Business Class Cairo to Dubai Review

On my recent trip to Dubai, I decided to fly down via Egypt. My first leg was EgyptAir 777-300ER Business Class Toronto to Cairo which gave me about a 3.5 hour layover in Cairo before I boarded EgyptAir 787-9 Business Class Cairo to Dubai.

For reference, this flight is formally labelled as MS912. It departs from Cairo at 9:40AM and lands in Dubai at 3PM. It’s actually a relatively short flight of about 3.5 hours but there’s a two hour time change so it seems longer.

I was more excited about this leg since it’s a 787-9 plane which has lie-flat pods in business class. My flight down from Toronto had lie-flat seats, but the pods are just way sexier. There was no doubt in my mind that this leg would be more comfortable, but read my EgyptAir 787-9 Business Class Cairo to Dubai review now for the full experience.

My flight from Toronto landed at 6:10AM at terminal 3. Since I was taking a connection, I had to go upstairs to the departure gates. There was a quick check of my ticket to get through but no formal security so things went quickly. Although my Priority Pass gave me access to the First Class Lounge, I read it was mediocre so I decided to check out the Almeisan lounge near the F gates. I was able to enter this lounge because I was flying business class. One thing to note, at Cairo’s gates have their own security checks and have limited seating so don’t go to your gate until boarding.

Upon entering, I was not that impressed. I had read that Cario’s lounges aren’t very good, but this was underwhelming. The seating area looked very dated and there was a limited amount of seats. Sadly, I’ve been in worse lounges. That said, I was grateful to have access to a lounge for a few hours. I had not slept on my flight so I would be happy to get one or two hours of shut-eye here.

Of course, the first thing I did after using the washroom was check out the food options. From a distance, it looked like there was a big spread but both serving trays were empty. It was 6AM so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, but you would think there would be something in there. They did have some cold cuts, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese and fruit. 

Just around the corner, there was a coffee/latte machine and what appeared to be a slushy machine but whatever liquid was in there definitely wasn’t frozen. There was also bread, croissants, pound cake and some other snacks.

In front of the coffee machine, there was another food station. This one had juice, water, pop, loaves of bread, cheese and cold cuts. I should note that both stations didn’t have their cheese and cold cuts on ice. I should also mention that there is no alcohol in this lounge. I’m pretty sure all lounges at the Cairo airport don’t have alcohol.

The lounge does have some huge windows so you get a nice view of the airplanes. It was also cool to see the sunrise and the runways pick up some activity.

I tried to get some sleep, but the seats were not comfortable at all. I pushed two seats together so I could lie down, but I sank into the cushions. I started to curse those windows as I realized they were barely insulated, the lounge was freezing. Even though the lounge is empty in this image, it was completely packed by 7AM. People were literally standing up waiting for seats. Honestly, this lounge sucked.

I practically jumped and ran to the gate as soon as it was time to board because I was so excited to fly EgyptAir 787-9 Business Class Cairo to Dubai. As soon as the staff saw that I was in business class, they escorted me right to my seat. I quickly recognized the orange stickers they have to alert staff of your preferences.

This pod did not disappoint. It came with a pillow, blanket, bottle of water and magazines. There was plenty of storage space to put my things so I didn’t bother using the overhead compartment at all. 

I may not look excited in this picture (it was 2AM at home!), I assure you I was super excited. The plane hadn’t even taken off yet and I had already tried out the lie-flat and reclining positions with my seat. 

The screen size was excellent but I quickly noticed that I had the same selection of movies as my flight from Toronto to Cairo. This isn’t a surprise since airlines usually have many similar movies during the month regardless of where they’re flying, but there were still only about 20 movies to choose from and only three or four of them were recent releases. You were forced to use their headphones since it had a two-pronged jack but the quality of the sound was terrible. The good thing is you had a handy remote in your storage area as well as a USB port and AC outlet.

About 30 minutes after takeoff, breakfast/lunch was served. This menu looked slightly better than my flight from Toronto to Cairo so I was a bit excited. Since they ran out of beef on my earlier flight, I was planning to have it on this one.

And they ran out of beef. Are you F-ing kidding me? On both EgyptAir business class flights, they ran out of the beef option. Business class wasn’t even that full so I don’t know how they ran out. I know I booked this flight on miles, but come on! Business class flyers should get whatever meal they want. I will say this, the appetizers which you see in this photo tasted better than my previous flight. However, my entree which was chicken tasted no different than a meal in economy so I didn’t even take a picture of it.

After my meal, I decided to lie down. Despite the fact that I had been up close to 24 hours, I wasn’t even tired. I only lied down because I wanted to test out the pod. Fortunately, the lay-flat option was excellent since the pod made it private. I had more than enough room to store my bag and jacket. There weren’t going to be any more meals for this flight so there was no worry of me missing anything.

While lying down, I was following the onscreen map and noticed we were right over Aqaba, Jordan so I got up to take a picture. This city has significance to me as I stopped here to catch a ferry to Egypt during my Jordan/Egypt trip back in 2012. This was one of the best trips my wife and I had ever taken and we made some really good friends on this journey. What made Aqaba stand out is that we had to stand in heat that reached the high 40’s while we waited for our ferry to arrive. Fun times. . .

On our final approach, I was able to spot the Burj Khalifa through the desert heat/smog? It wasn’t that impressive due to the lack of air quality, but as I would soon find out this is one of the prettiest cities I’ve ever been to. I had been pushing off my trip to Dubai for close to a decade so I’m glad I finally made it down. 

As you can see, it was a pretty straight forward flight path with no surprises. My EgyptAir 787-9 Business Class Cairo to Dubai review is positive since you get excellent seats but I’m still mad about the lack of food. Flying to Dubai via Egypt Air is a good option when using miles since finding award space is much easier compared to direct flights. I doubt I’ll be back ever again, but I said the same thing about Egypt and I was literally just there. I didn’t leave the airport, but it still counts. Oh, don’t miss out on my Emirates A380 First Class Dubai to Toronto review which was craaaaazy!