Review: Yemenia A320 Economy Aden-Djibouti
- Konrad Tillman
- Jun 16
- 10 min read
Updated: Jun 16
Intro
Growing up, I was always told by my father that "moments can change your life". While he might have been talking about the football field, I think this came out today on this flight onboard Yemenia. After flying well over 1000 flights in my lifetime, this is the most memorable one I have ever had.
As a reference point, I flew this flight 2 days after one of the Yemenia planes had been bombed up in Sanaa. Yemeni has 4 A320s stationed in Aden, and had* an A320 & A330 stationed up in Sanaa.
Following a lovely time in Aden, it was finally time to embark on the next adventure. While I had the opportunity to fly Air Djibouti on the outbound, I figured that the audience would like to know what it was like onboard the flag carrier of Yemenia in economy. How was it? Amazing, but not in the ways you would think.
Route- Aden-Djibouti
Flight Number- IY620
Seat- 21F
Aircraft- Airbus A320
Date- May 30th, 2025
Flight Time- 35 Minutes
Price Paid- 257$ OW
How I Booked
In my previous post, I touched on the complicated process of booking a flight to mainland Yemen.
But to summarize: I had to be in Indonesia for dinner the night of the 1st, and with all flights sold out for the next two weeks to everywhere that Yemenia serves (minus Djibouti), the only option I was left with was Djibouti.
Someone in Yemen had to visit the ticketing office and pay with cash for this ticket, as there is no way to book a Yemenia ticket online. One day, that would be a neat addition to this airline, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Aden Airport/Check In
Rushing out of my haircut looking like a Porcupine with half of my hair cut and half of it not cut, my guide's brother switched on one last tune for the short 5-minute drive to Aden airport. Ready for what it was?
Baby you're a fireworkkkkkkk, come on show them whatttt you're worth, make it go...
Screaming at the top of our lungs (see, we are all human and most of us like Katy Perry 🥴), we arrived at the heavily fortified Aden Airport. There was one checkpoint...
Honestly, Aden is quite a pretty little airport once you get passed those walls. There is a beautiful little A320 standing strong outside, and it kind of resembles Yemenia as a whole. Barely any other airline dares to fly in here, and here is this little airline practically saving lives.
The healthcare in Yemen isn't great, so if someone needs emergency surgery, they must fly out on Yemenia.
Well, my train of thought was quickly interrupted as we came into another checkpoint. I will admit, if you are white (caucasian), you do have special priveleges.
And sure enough, we had arrived at Aden airport, about 2 hours prior to boarding. For a country in a civil war, it was actually looking quite sharp.
Giving a huge hug to my guide's brother, it was a sad moment when I went to check in. I realized that I hadn't just visited Yemen, but I had shared laughs so big I began crying (out of joy, relax), and I had built friendships that will probably last forever.
Okay, enough emotional stuff. Aden airport is relatively small, but straightforward inside. There is a guard who will check your printed ticket/passport, and then a check-in hall ahead.
It wasn't too busy in the afternoon (most flights leave in the very early hours around 3 am), and with no checked baggage, I had received my boarding pass for a window seat within minutes.
Oh yeah, I had applied for an E-Visa to Djibouti, but it had not come in time. Even if online they say you need a visa, Djibouti IS a Visa-On-Arrival (more on this later) process.
Immigration took a matter of minutes, and to be honest, I lost count of the number of times I said, "I love Yemen" to more than 4 people in line. Hey, I'm not lying either...
Boarding
I had about an hour and 15 minutes to kill, and a man approached me offering lounge access for 10 USD. Considering a day pass in the US is 59$, I took him up on the offer and spent the next while in beautiful Rotana VIP Lounge (reviewed separately).
Around 6:15 pm local time, 45 minutes prior to departure, boarding was called, and my private driver (extra 5$) carried my bags through security, into the back of the private car, and we made our way out to the plane.
At this point, one of the two buses had already been offloaded with passengers, so there was a bit of a queue to get onboard. Not that it really mattered much, as I was able to snap some pictures of an aircraft I will most likely never fly again.
After about a 5-minute wait (keep in mind a lot of people on these flights are families, so it can take quite a while), I stepped onboard to begin my first-ever flight with Yemenia.
The Seat/Cabin
Seats on the Yemenia A320 are laid out in a 2-class configuration. In the front of the cabin are 8 business class seats laid out in a 2-2 configuration. I didn't get a whole lot of time to check them out, but they didn't seem that bad whatsoever. More like old, worn-in recliners.
Moving on back to where I was sitting, economy 🥴, I believe I saw 24 rows of economy seats laid out in a 3-3 configuration. Look, I am going to keep it 100, this cabin is pretty barebones. You can say "au revoir" to IFE, Wifi, or pretty much anything else. This product was designed to get passengers from point A to point B.
While I haven't been able to find the exact pitch online (I mean, Yemenia doesn't even show up on Google Flights), I would estimate the product to be right at about 30 inches. Adequate.
Finally, and most critically, there ARE overhead air vents. Considering this used to be an ex-Silk Air plane, this was something I welcomed with open arms!
To summarize: you get a seat and overhead air vents. Nothing else. No wifi, no IFE, etc. Then again, you are flying out of a country that is in a civil war. The amount of money Yemenia must spend on insurance is staggering.
The Flight
Alright, all of the heavy lifting out of the way, let's get into why this flight was so spectacular.
Settling into my seat, I thought I was about to luck out and get an open row. However, there were two men in their 20's who happened to be the last onboard, and sat next to me.
As we were delayed a bit, the people next to me started talking to me. They were both from the South of Yemen, and tried their best to speak to me in English. Keep in mind, I am visiting their country, and I don't speak any Arabic, so this is on me.
So the guy on the right up above is some sort of Snapchat influencer in Yemen, and he began taking videos of all of us. In one of the videos, I ask, "Is Yemenia a good airline"?
He responded, "50-50", and we just burst out laughing. For the entirety of the flight, 50-50 became the inside joke.
So when the cabin crew came around prior to departure to dsitribute a quick Turkish (very interesting) snack, I asked him, "is this good"?
He replied, "not 50-50, 100%". Once again we burst out laughing 🤣.
About to be on the floor in hysteria, the captain came onto welcome us onboard and inform us of our 35 minute flight to Yemen. With people still standing up, nursery ryhmes in the background on full volume, and gosh knows what else going on, we began moving.
On a flight in the US, I would have been concerned, but welcome to Yemen Habibi 🇾🇪.
Due to the sheer number of departures, we had to wait about 40 minutes for takeoff...
I'm joking, it was a quick backtaxi and we were wheels up at 7:10 pm local time on a fine evening. Jokes aside, after the plane being bombed in the North I was a little nervous, but I also know that Yemenia is a highly respected carrier in terms of safety.
Once airborne, we still could not stop chatting. As a matter of fact, it really did become that LA photo studio I was talking about earlier. We started posting, taking pictures in sunglasses on the plane, while all you could hear in the background was "twinkle twinkle little star" from the passenger behind 😅. Ahh, life, it does not get much better...
Approximately 10 minutes after we were airborne, the cabin crew came around distributing a choice of juices as well as a bottle of water. This is actually quite smart of Yemenia, as they give a snack on the ground, and then a refreshment in the air.
For a 35-minute flight, much more than you would get in other places in the world...
Continuing to laugh away, I hadn't even looked outside before I realized we were on final approach into Djibouti. You could have kept me on this flight another 2 hours, and I would have had no idea 😅.
We ended up touching down ahead of schedule in Djibouti at 7:43 local time and pulling in next to this Turkish beast a few minutes later.
No 50-50, we had made it safely to JIB 😅.
Just for the readers, I decided to hang back after deplaning and get all of the cabin shots I wanted. I know I won't be flying Yemenia anytime soon (or will I 😉), so I figured this would be my only chance to get these (pictured above in the seat/cabin section).
Bidding farewell to the kind crew (they were nice, can't report much on an economy flight which was 35 minutes long), and my new friends, I made the short walk back into the Djibouti Airport terminal I know oh so well.
Immigration
Right, I think I must have lost the plot this evening, as arriving at immigration, I was happy to find 8 lines open. Only issue? No one had a visa, and there was only one person making the visas on arrival.
So I waited
And I waited
And I waited
And I continued to wait
Then I contemplated my life decisions
Until eventually, I was like wtf. Everyone had handed in their passports, and there were 6 immigration officers just chilling there. 6 IMMIGRATION OFFICERS and only one working on the visas on arrival. At one point, another guy decided to help out, but would then proceed to go on his phone after completing one for 5 minutes. EVERY TIME.
2 hours after landing, I had finally received my visa. Yup, 2 hours. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a huge deal, but what frustrated me is how much more efficiently this could have been done.
Whatever, tired would be an understatement at this point in time. I hopped in a taxi, paid the 3500 Francs (absurdly expensive), and 12 minutes later, I had made it to my hotel for the night.
Final Thoughts
Flying Yemenia was completely a 50-50 experience. Not 50-50 in terms of safety, but it was a flight filled with 50% laughter, and 50% my inner Avgeek child getting giddy. Look, Yemenia isn't going to win any awards with their product whatsoever, but the Yemeni people make up for it. This was a flight I will never forget in a million years, just due to the fact that I laughed the whole flight with two people from Yemen. If an American and two Yemenis can laugh, we can all share a laugh with one another, no matter who or where you are from.
Do I recommend Yemenia? Well, you ain't really got much of a choice 😅.
Thank you for reading the entirety of this Yemenia series (if you have). It has been my greatest honor to share with you a small look into this country, and if you want to re-read some of the posts, they are attached below ❤️. Next up: the Fiji Series!
Yemen Series:
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