It’s amazing what you can find when you really take the time to look around. You’d probably never think to choose Ethiopian Airlines to Australia as they don’t fly there, but here we are.
After British Airways ruined their Executive Club programme for people like me, I’ve decided to follow the best price. For years I’ve wanted to try Ethiopian Airlines and it looks like that time has come.
Ethiopian Airlines to Australia
Frequent flyers in the know are aware that it’s possible to get excellent deals when flying out of Cairo. In spite of all the recent bad press that airport has received, I’ve taken the plunge and booked Cairo to Sydney with Ethiopian.
This entails a 16 hour stop in Addis Ababa each way, which is a good thing for several reasons. For a start, any people with connections over eight hours triggers STPC, or Stopover Paid by Carrier.
After Addis Ababa, there are several options to choose from for the onwards flight to Sydney. ET offer connections with Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Thai Airways, Cathay Dragon, Philippine Airlines and Malaysia Airlines. I elected to go via Kuala Lumpur on the latter.
I’ll be on Cloud 9
Cloud 9 is what the airline calls its business class cabin. Since I’ll be travelling on a mix of Boeing 787s and 777s, I won’t be getting the latest product available on their Airbus A350s.
Overall Thoughts
I’m very much looking forward to trying Ethiopian Airlines to Australia (and Malaysia Airlines too!). Considering the price was a shade under €2,800 (£2,345 / US$2,900 / AU$4,650) it was a very good deal indeed. Throw in the stopovers each way and it comes out very competitively. For comparison, the cheapest standard ticket from here to there for the same dates starts at €5,500 – virtually twice as much.
Having a little flexibility and being able to travel from other ports really makes a difference. The only decision I need to make now is where to credit these flights. I don’t have a Star Alliance frequent flyer card, so it’s time to shop around for one.
Have you flown Ethiopian Airlines or Malaysia Airlines before? What are they like? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by BriYYZ via Wikimedia Commons.
Tails by Raimund Stehmann on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.
Business class seats by Jjm2311 via Wikimedia Commons.
This’ll make for interesting reviews… Is the €2800 including positioning flights from Dublin to Cairo, Ethiopian from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur(via Addis Ababa) & Malaysia Airlines onto Sydney or only Ethiopian from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur? Will the stopover hotels in Addis be nice hotels do you know? I understand that it’s good value, but do you not think that it’s incredibly inconvenient to go from Dublin-Cairo-Addis Ababa-Kuala Lumpur-Sydney-Kuala Lumpur-Addis Ababa-Cairo-Dublin when you can just go via Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi? How long are you going to Australia for? Will you be flying EgyptAir from Dublin to and from Cairo?
The price is from Cairo to Sydney and return via Addis Ababa, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, so the Ethiopian and Malaysia Airlines flights. For the positioning flights, I used Avios for the return flight on BA via LHR so that cost next to nothing. For the outbound it’ll likely be Egyptair, which will add to the price by a couple of hundred Euros. The stopover hotel offered by Ethiopian is apparently really nice, it’s also owned by the airline. Looks good in the review pictures I’ve seen.
Sure, it’s a little inconvenient with all the stops, but it saves thousands. Going via AUH one stop is €6,292 with Etihad, via DXB with Emirates is €7,195 and via DOH with Qatar is €7,409 for my dates. Considering I’ll be all in for under €3,100, it’s a substantial amount of money saved for about a day extra travel time each way (and 16 hours of each of those days is actually in Addis Ababa). I’ll be in Australia about two weeks all in, which is plenty.
Flying from US through Ethiopia to Namibia this summer and I was interested in a long layover stay as well, but word of warning. Ethiopia is a yellow fever country, my hour and a half layover didn’t trigger any issue but if I left the airport and stayed overnight then whatever country you fly on to can require yellow fever vaccination documentation. Long layover stays provided by multiple airlines are attractive, just FYI
Thanks for the tip! I had read about the Yellow Fever vaccination, so I’ll likely go ahead and get that sorted just to be on the safe side. The last thing I need would be to be turned around and sent back whence I came. Appreciate it!