After a day exploring our nation’s capital, it was time to head out of the country. We took the hotel shuttle from the Hyatt Place Herndon/Dulles Airport-East which only took about 10 minutes. It was time for a business class flight on an EgyptAir Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, going from Washington Dulles (IAD) to Cairo Egypt (CAI). This EgyptAir Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner review will go through the seat, amenities, food and other experiences on our flight. For more articles from this trip, see the table of contents at the bottom of this post.

EgyptAir Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Business Class IAD-CAI Details

• Airline: EgyptAir
• Aircraft: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner
• Cabin: Business, 1-2-1 configuration
• Origin: Washington Dulles (IAD)
• Destination: Cairo (CAI)
• Distance: 5,842 miles
• Departure Time: 12:55 p.m. (55 minutes late)
• Arrival Time: 5:17 a.m. (+1 day, 6 hour time difference)
• Flight date: April 6, 2023
• Seat: 10D (middle left)

EgyptAir IAD business class checkin

Since it was an international flight, I figured there probably wasn’t any point to trying to check in online, so I figured that I would just check in at the airport. We got to the airport around 8:30 a.m. for a noon flight. At Washington Dulles / IAD airport, EgyptAir has its ticketing booths in Section 1, which is the first section as you arrive to the airport. We went to the business class checkin line.

But for some reason it took a bit as the agents kept helping people from the economy line and/or just standing around. After maybe 10 minutes, someone finally motioned us to come up. I handed over our passports and our Egyptian visas. There was a bit of confusion because my ticket was an Aeroplan ticket with a final destination of Tokyo Narita.

The agent had to call over a few other people (managers?) to “hit buttons” on his system. He first asked for visas, and when I gave him our Egyptian visas he wanted instead our Japanese visas. I told him that US passport holders don’t need a visa to enter Japan. He then asked if we had a PCR test to which I replied that you didn’t need one if you were vaccinated. Then he asked to see our COVID vaccination cards, which I gave him. That still didn’t work until again he finally hit the “right” buttons and gave us our boarding passes for the IAD-CAI and CAI-AUH legs. Originally he said we would need to get our AUH-NRT boarding passes in Abu Dhabi from Etihad but then he hit more buttons and managed to print those out as well.

EgyptAir business class lounge and boarding process

The check-in agent invited us to use the Turkish Airlines IAD lounge, which is conveniently located right across from Gate B38 at IAD / Dulles where the IAD-CAI flight departs from. But since we had a few extra hours, we instead first went to the United Polaris Lounge IAD and hung out there for awhile, since I assumed (quite correctly) that it would be a much nicer lounge than the Turkish lounge.

As it got closer to our flight time, we headed over to the B gates and did stop into the Turkish lounge for a few minutes. On our boarding pass, it said boarding was at 10:30 a.m. for a 12:00 noon flight, but boarding didn’t actually start until nearly 11 a.m.

We left the lounge as they were announcing business class boarding, and we made our way directly onto the plane.

EgyptAir Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner Business Class Seats

I had selected seats 10A and 10D for us. The EgyptAir Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Business Class cabin is laid out in a 1-2-1 configuration

Couples traveling together might want to consider the D and G seats which have a partition that you can pull back. This is what Carolyn and I used when we flew Emirates first class a few years ago

(SEE ALSO: Help! I’m “stuck” in Emirates First class on ONLY a 777!!!)

But I figured my son would enjoy the window seat so I put him into 10A

I sat in 10D, which is the left middle seat across the aisle from him.

The seats are classic Dreamliner seats with a variety of controls and compartments.

The EgyptAir Dreamliner Business Class seats are all completely lie flat seats

There was a compartment witih outlets including a USB charging outlet, but I found that the USB outlet at my seat did not work (or I didn’t know how to work it), so I had to plug my phone in off of my laptop.

EgyptAir Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Business Class Review – Amenities

At our seats there was also an amenity kit

which came with a variety of toiletries

There was also wifi available on the flight between Washington DC and Cairo. The EgyptAir Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner wifi gave 10MB for free and then allowed you to purchase additional amounts of data. I managed to blow through the 10MB in an instant on both my laptop and my phone (I assume some sort of background process using data without my knowing it). I ended up buying the 240MB package for $20 and used about 30MB of it for the remainder of the flight.

EgyptAir Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Entertainment

There is a large screen at your seat with a variety of different movies and TV. The entertainment selection is definitely more sparse than some other airlines that I have recently flown. Still, I managed to find a few things to watch during the flight.

EgyptAir Dreamliner Business Class IAD-CAI Food

We ended up being delayed by about an hour and they did serve a small predeparture beverage a bit before we pushed back. EgyptAir is a dry airline, which means that they don’t serve alcohol – instead it was a lemon / mint tea. This was no problem for me as I don’t drink alcohol anyways, but if you prefer alcohol as part of your premium cabin experience, you may want to choose a different airline. Then, about an hour after departure, the staff came through with the first meal.

First was an appetizer tray, with a salad, bread and hummus and cheese. It was quite tasty. The only (minor) complaint was that the butter that came with it was quite cold and hard (to the point of being unspreadable). It wasn’t a problem for me because the hummus was so good.

Then, they came with the main dish. There was a choice between beef, chicken and shrimp. I had the shrimp which came with rice and was very good.

The dessert was a choice of assorted fruit or a tart. I had the tart which was, again, very good

After the initial lunch (dinner?) meal was served, I tried to get some sleep. Egypt is 6 hours ahead of the US East Coast, so I tried to tell myself that it was getting close to 8 or 9 p.m. I was hoping to get a few hours of sleep in before our flight arrived around 5 a.m. Egypt time. Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep very well, and eventually just got myself back up and had breakfast a bit before we arrived. There was an omelet that was served with potatoes and a meat / bacon of some sort. This was okay but not amazing.

Then there was a fruit / bread / jam tray which I enjoyed.

The Bottom Line – EgyptAir Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner Business Class Review IAD-CAI

My EgyptAir Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner Business Class Review is that it was definitely a solid option and one that I would be happy to book again. The food was good, the seat was everything that you need from a business class seat and the timing was good. As part of booking an Aeroplan award ticket, the price was great as well. I would definitely recommend this if you are flying to Egypt or in this direction.

Have you flown EgyptAir Business Class on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner between Washington and Cairo? Leave your thoughts in the comments below

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