After a pleasant flight from Dubai to Beirut aboard an A320, it was time to test MEA’s flagship A330-200.
Give yourself extra time to get from the central terminal to your gate: an additional security screening is required. Boarding started about an hour before takeoff.
Middle East Airlines 217
Beirut (BEY) – Frankfurt (FRA)
Friday, August 10
Depart: 07:10 AM
Arrive: 10:25 AM
Duration: 04hr, 15min
Distance: 1,765 miles
Aircraft: Airbus A330-200
Seat: 5K (Business “Cedar” Class)
Middle East Airlines Business Class A330-200 Seat
As I stepped onboard, I was surprised to see this:
Talk about legroom! SeatGuru does not indicate that Row 5 is an exit row:
The 44 seats in business class are spread out in one single large cabin. Qatar Airways has a similar open cabin style on its A350-900s without QSuite.
Seats were electrically controlled by adjacent buttons:
Inside a flip up arm-rest was personal storage sufficient for a wallet, cell phone, and passport.
IFE controller:
Individual reading lights were located between seats:
Seats are technically lie-flat, but not parallel to the floor when in lie-flat mode.
Unfortunately, Middle East Airlines provides below average bedding. The pillow was fine, but the blanket scratchy.
Parked adjacent to our plane was a Royal Jordanian 787-8:
Take-off:
Middle East Airlines Business Class A330 Service
Service shined on this flight, just like my flight from Dubai to Frankfurt. Flight attendants were all pleasant and quite friendly. The Lebanese, in general, are such hospitable people and that shows on MEA. I noticed that kanafeh was on the menu and mentioned to the FA working my side of the plane how excited I was. That seemed to make her day: you should have seen her face light up.
Middle East Airlines Business A330 Class Dining
A choice of juices and champagne was offered prior to departure.
Menus were distributed: brunch was served.
The appetizer tray identical to the previous flight with cheese and bread served with labneh and fruit. This is a meal alone, but the best came next.
Kanafeh is a traditional Arab dessert made with layers of cheese and dough, topped in pistachios and drenched in rose water syrup. It was delicious and if it was not so rich I would have asked for seconds. A nice strong espresso complemented the meal nicely.
Middle East Airlines A330-200 Business Class IFE
A console in the seat provided a 12-inch touchscreen IFE system. The selection included about 30 movies as well as TV programming, games, and audio.
Noise-cancelling headphones were functional, but not very comfortable around the ear.
Middle East Airlines Business Class Lavatory
The lavatory was clean but featured no additional amenities.
I found an open ashtray in the lavatory, but did not detect even the slightest smell of smoke on this flight.
CONCLUSION
Compared to Lufthansa, which would have offered a narrow body aircraft with only an economy class seat with blocked middle in “business” class, the experience on Middle East Airlines was far superior. I enjoyed both flights on this airline and look forward to flying it again.
In the introduction of the flight review you said your A320 flight was from Dubai to Frankfurt when I think you meant Dubai to Beirut.
I did. Thanks!
While I get the Qatar reference it’s a bit misleading as less experienced readers may believe Qatar has a 2-2-2 configuration on their A350s. Try “Qatar Airways also features a large, open business class cabin without bulkheads by the entryway on its A350-900s without QSuite”.
Otherwise, great review. Did you select row 5 by chance?
Fair point. I will adjust.
Is the IFE screen size in the exit row 5 different than the IFE for all other business class seats? The other IFE screen size seems bigger.
Yes, the screens for row are slightly smaller. Note the seats in row 1 and seats A, C, H, and K in row 2 also have the same types of IFE screens that row 5 have.
Meant to say the the screens for row 5 are slightly smaller.
A massive 44 seats in Business Class not bad.
Condor Air and Thomas Cook should copy that.
Nice and tasty looking dessert. Oh..and the Expresso.
Can you tell me about your food selection? Looks good to order for my next flight.
Interesting but … the seat goes flat with sharp incline… who enjoys sleeping with feet down ?????
It’s not the most comfortable, but still acceptable.
Hi do passengers sitting on a window seat in Business, need to ask the passenger seated next to them to move if they want to leave their seat – I couldn’t tell from the pictures whether there was enough room to leave a window seat without troubling the person seated next to you