Egyptair to launch Cairo to Manchester flights

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• Nick says:

  5 May5 May 06:06

  As a regular guest at the old Crowne Plaza London The City, I’m looking forward to trying the Hyatt property out. It was indeed, IMHO, the best IHG property in London, much preferred to the IC Park Lane. The staff were always some of the best, very welcoming, friendly & efficient. The suites were great value at weekends, the location excellent for central London travel, being opposite Blackfriars station.

  On first impressions of the photos, I’m not particularly enamoured with the look of the
  guestrooms/suites. Very light, yes, but I dislike wood laminate/engineered flooring, much preferring carpets, and, surely, in a suite you can expect a sofa. They look like a job lot from IKEA.

  OK, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, of course, but just a couple of initial thoughts.

  • Ray says:

    5 May5 May 09:13

    I will visit London in Jul, I booked Hyatt Regency London Albert Embankment by point and upgrade to the suite by Suite Upgrade Award.
    should I switch to Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars? any advice?

    • Rob says:

      5 May5 May 10:08

      Almost certainly. Embankment is a bad location for most things and AFAIK no work has been done on the hotel since it was reflagged. Blackfriars should be multiples better in every respect.

      • Ray says:

        5 May5 May 12:03

        Thanks Rob

• TimM says:

  5 May5 May 07:42

  Manchester to Cairo is a very civilised route.

  • Rob says:

    5 May5 May 09:01

    Until you land in Cairo, which makes Bangkok look like Bath.

    • Chris W says:

      5 May5 May 09:13

      LOL. Other than the pyramids and the museum, there is very little reason for anyone to go to Cairo.

      • Martin says:

        5 May5 May 10:46

        I’d recommend going to garbage City and seeing the church built into the rock face and carvings some Polish man being doing for years..

    • Gordon says:

      5 May5 May 09:14

      I presume Cairo is no better than Hurghada, A freind has just returned from Hurghada and said there’s Military in many places with guns on many check points on the roads.

      • NorthernLass says:

        5 May5 May 14:20

        It’s always been like that, it’s just a fact of life in these type of countries and it’s at least in part to protect tourists and the tourist industry. In our younger and more naive days we paid a local taxi driver to take us from Luxor to Denderah and only realised when we arrived that we’d had an armed police “escort” the whole way!

    • BJ says:

      5 May5 May 09:16

      Sometime in the last three decades I think you’ve lost your sense of adventure 🙂 Give me Bangkok and Cairo over Dubai and Venice every day of the week. Just curious, can you walk into a regular shopping mall in Dubai, purchase a Rolls Royce and drive it out the showroom? You can in Bangkok.

      • James says:

        5 May5 May 09:44

        I agree. The rough and ready adventure (with luxury hotels 😆) beats a sanitised location such as Dubai any day.

      • Jonathan says:

        5 May5 May 10:00

        You’d probably be able to do the same in Cairo, just expect to get harassed and scammed !

        Besides all the negative sides of travelling to Egypt, their ancient history is so strong hardly any other country can compete with, and for those looking for something different (non luxury and well out of the way) go to the White Dessert, I loved it there

        • Joseph Wiltshire says:

          6 May6 May 05:25

          ****DESERT****. A dessert is something different 😂

      • Rob says:

        5 May5 May 10:07

        Not suggesting you don’t go, just saying that ‘civilised’ isn’t the word you’ll be using after you’ve been! I’ve actually been talking to the kids about doing a trip. It’s also just about the only way of getting Star Alliance Middle East premium redemptions these days so may tie it all together.

    • Novice says:

      5 May5 May 11:33

      😂

• Peter says:

  5 May5 May 07:44

  Perhaps worth mentioning that EgyptAir is well known and in fact widely feared for their fuel surcharges on award tickets, whichever Star Alliance programme you use

  • Jonathan says:

    5 May5 May 10:13

    Have you done any dummy searches or bookings without completing to check your theory ?

    • Rob says:

      5 May5 May 10:51

      Heathrow to Cairo is £517 in taxes / charges using Lufthansa in Business – which is very favourable to, say, £800 for a BA CW to Dubai under the old pricing structure. You get a 777 from Heathrow which makes it more palatable.

      The problem is that there is a mental backlash, unsurprisingly, to paying long haul taxes and charges (inc long haul APD which is a large part of the problem) for a flight on a short haul aircraft which doesn’t really ‘feel’ long haul.

    • Peter says:

      5 May5 May 12:52

      I have Jonathan, quite extensively

• Chrisasaurus says:

  5 May5 May 08:35

  If you see it as Cairo to Manchester – not unreasonable given the airline – then the timings are actually very reasonable for a short break

  • NorthernLass says:

    5 May5 May 08:46

    I’m not sure that the Coronation St studio tour and Manchester Ship Canal quite compare with the Pyramids, Sphinx and Nile!
    But I hope the route survives at Cairo is definitely on my bucket list.

    • James says:

      5 May5 May 09:49

      You can find rather decent biz prices from Cairo to all sorts of places, so that’s one draw for folks.
      Also if you want to go to Sharm or Hurghada for some diving then flying via Cairo is the only way to make the direct journey in a biz seat which isn’t simply an economy seat with an empty one next to you.

      The prices BA charge for this route (and Sharm) in a CE cabin are a disgrace !

      • Jonathan says:

        5 May5 May 10:28

        What BA charge for this route, you’re right is a disgrace, what even more disgraceful is that this is classed as ‘CE / ET’ which means you pay for a business class seat that should never be regarded as one in the first place, when I flew in ET in October last year, I avoided wasting money on it because of that reason, and what surprised me was that my ET seat had no recline or IFE !

        It beggars belief that routes like Cairo and Amman are classed as CE / ET, since anyone who regards either city as in Europe or in any way related to it by any means is just plain stupid

        If I ever travel to Cairo / Amman again, BA will need too’ve made some radical improvements, or I’ll definitely be going with MS / RJ. There’s nothing wrong with using narrow body aircraft, but for longer routes, they need to be adequately fitted. One time when I flew home from Moscow in 2017, I was put on an ex – BMI plane (I think it was), throne style CE/W seats, and IFE for everyone no need to mention anything about seat recline !

  • Rob says:

    5 May5 May 09:00

    I think we can safely assume that 90% of pax will be starting in Manchester. It’s not a bad connecting option either if you have Star miles.

    • Bagoly says:

      5 May5 May 09:15

      It’s the one airline that flies to Europe that I avoid for safety reasons.

      • David S says:

        5 May5 May 10:28

        We flew from Sharm to Luxor for a day trip once. It was on an old 727 and there was a whole queue of planes going at 5 minute intervals on the same route and it was at an unbelievable early time in the day. There was Rock music playing on the flight and Luxor airport really did look like a (ex ?) military airport with bunkers and hard shelters everywhere. The start of a long and exciting day. The thing that stood out the most was the Valley of the Kings being like a housing estate in a nice English suburb in terms of how things are laid out.

• David says:

  5 May5 May 09:14

  Rob, you mention the proper 2×2 seating on Egyptair. Have you considered compiling a list of airlines that have this seating configuration rather than a blocked middle seat? I am aware that Icelandair has it.

  • Rob says:

    5 May5 May 10:08

    Good idea. Not sure how we’d do this though. Rhys will see this comment – will let him mull it over!

  • Jonathan says:

    5 May5 May 10:39

    For those who aren’t aware, don’t book the joint first place Star Alliance airline talked about most here on HfP, Lufthansa

    Their Business class offering on narrow body aircraft is just as absurd as BA’s, so probably not worth bothering with

• BJ says:

  5 May5 May 09:18

  Has Hyatt refurbished, CP The City was good but a bit dated.

• Aston100 says:

  5 May5 May 13:09

  I think you’ve got those arrival times wrong.
  Cairo is +2 hours in summer. The flight time is about 4.5 to 5 hours.
  You need to add 2 hours to the Cairo arrival time and subtract 2 hours from the Manchester arrival time

  • Rob says:

    5 May5 May 13:49

    Just telling you what’s on the Egyptair website!

• Lady London says:

  5 May5 May 14:48

  If I had to do Cairo on Star Alliance I think I’d do Turkish

  • Jonathan says:

    5 May5 May 15:32

    +1

    Also use RJ if going to or from Amman (for direct options)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.