For the first long haul segment of my Orient Express adventure via Africa trip , I flew Air Algerie’s Airbus A330-900neo business class on the 6hr50min flight from Montreal (YUL) to Algiers (ALG). I had heard almost entirely negative things about Air Algerie, which intrigued me, naturally! Well, now that I’ve flown Air Algerie I can confirm that everything I heard was true, and then some.

I don’t want to be dramatic — obviously flying business class is better than economy — but honestly, just about everything sucked. On the plus side, the seats as such were fine, but that’s where the good news ends. The food was not good, and took an insanely long amount of time to be served. There were no amenity kits… or menus… or meal choice… or alcohol… or diet soda. If the crew were any more indifferent, they would’ve been invisible.

I wouldn’t fly Air Algerie again unless I absolutely had to, which… I can’t imagine that’ll ever be the case.…