I - AIRSIDE II - BOARDING III - FROM APRON TO THE AIR IV - CATERING 1 - DINER V - CATERING 2 - BKF VI - CABIN VII - DESCENT AND LANDING TO JETBRIDGE VIII - DEBOARDING IX - IMMIGRATION/LUGGAGES/CUSTOMS
I left you at the end of my MH122 flight between SYD and KUL. So here we are in KUL. As you may recall from the previous MH flight I reported, KUL has a pre-boarding procedure which I don't particularly like due to the lack of seats outside the gates and because it means the terminal is rather spotter unfriendly (even if I am not a real one :D).
Leadership did beautiful pictures during his boarding on AF241 and so was the entire FR, but it is still in French so I decided to do one anyway as it may be one of the last one to KUL with AF.
I - AIRSIDE
As I told you before, we got our BPs on transit desk where a friendly malaysian agent gave us directions and all those things.
But that is for the transfer desk located at gates C1-C37. The one on the other side, at gate A7, despite showing AF/KL seemed unable to give us our BPs in the first place because we were not transiting with MH…
AF uses gate C4 all the time, it was the same boarding gate for Leadership, the same from which I deboarded from AF246, and yet the same I'm using tonight.
Security passed in a whistle once again, but this is KUL and this is a second security screening so no 'big deal'.
As you can 'see' (trying to stay serious), our aircraft is F-GSPB, meaning the second AF's 772ER… More than 17 years old !
I remember perfectly the IFE reboot nightmare on F-GSPN last time on AF246, so I thought at that moment that with an aircraft yet two years older than the previous one, it would be even worse.
Gate C4, what a name for an airport gate! Utterly clean and modern by the way (free wifi of course available). But a bit too much of a brightness on the screen as you can see, this time.
The whole terminal is extremely hot inside, but once in the boarding gates, it is extremely cold… Not very nice
YES ! We saw the crew ! (for those who don't understand my excitment, some weeks earlier, an AF crew did fly to DPS on their spare time to do some surfing, a vulcano erupted in Indonesia, they did not make it back in time, flight was postponed by 24hrs, very very professional indeed… !)
II - BOARDING
We were called for boarding on time.
Every BP was scanned and priorities were respected. Here is mine
We were refuelling by 11:03 and at ':15 we were still refuelling, which was the scheduled departure time. Anyway, 7 minutes later, at 11:22, we were ready for pushback.
III - FROM APRON TO THE AIR
Take off is, well, in the dark, I took it for you to see/hear the runway state like I told you before! Horrible !
We climbed till maybe between FL280 and FL300.
IV - CATERING 1 - DINER
Diner started at 1:10AM KUL time.
Menu, always nice since Air France gives the opportunity to have a written choice, always better than oral when you don't speak the airline original language and you don't speak a good english.
When the FAs arrived, they told us that there were no more choice, so it would be
Rendang chicken braised in coconut-chile sauce, turmeric rice and vegetables. Our neighbour did let hear he was not happy with that, he seemed annoying… 13hrs left. Not a thank you for the crew, nothing. He was French, like us, forgot to precise !
The full tray. FR tip on top.
It may be visually quite appealing, the taste was awful, vegetables were too dry.
As I was expecting, the best part was the chicken, very spicy, tender and tasteful. Unforgettable.
The chocolate cake did not break the house. A regular one.
I ended the tray at 1:50PM KUL time.
V - CATERING 2 - BKF
I woke up at 6:09 AM KUL time, I slept for 3hrs and a half which is a record on this seat. The pitch helped. We crossed Aral sea some 40 minutes later on. At 9:20 AM/3:20 AM CDG time, i went to toilets and our neighbour was sleeping. We asked to get out but he refused, so we had to overpass him. Very unfriendly, once in 12hrs and 50 minutes. Come on ! With this 3-4-3 configuration and that kind of neighbour, you are literally in prison.
The lights came up at 5AM CDG time and service started 6 minutes later at Graz, Austria.
Straight to the breakfast here, with the full tray.
On my left hand, melon and water melon (regular as well).
Eggs with sausage, hopefully good this one.
Better with the light ?
Close up in the yoghourt, chemical one as always.
One very bad point for a FA. A female FA was chatting with her colleague and said she did not have any dustbin left. She then said, quite loud enough to be heard : you'll have to get lumbered with the whole cabin ! (it was in french, I don't know if the translation is good enough, but it gave an incredible laziness feeling towards the crew)
VI - CABIN
Seat
The best news on the FR is this huge pitch, I don't know why it was so huge but it was probably a row misplacement. Do travel row 30 on the right hand side if you don't have Best&Beyond !
Aboriginal art under the seat :D
A 19 minutes late is scheduled just 3hrs after take off, not surprising as we pushback 7 minutes late.
Outside
I took this one while crossing Austria I think, this is my biggest frustration about the flight, no photo opportunity…
All missed, obviously, nighttime …
And… I once again forgot to take a picture of the toilets. A woman was waiting behind so I did not want to take 30 minutes to review the toilets but we don't have pictures right now…
Anyway, while I'm doing my mea culpa, I, as well, forgot to take a picture of the inflight bar. But, I got a tuna sandwich, good one and a juice, I don't remember which one.
The female FA was chatting with a colleague of her, but she anyway served me (even if it is self service) with smile and talked a bit. But she was mainly into her chatting, which is a bit unpleasant.
VII - DESCENT AND LANDING TO JETBRIDGE
We started our descent at 6:10AM, our scheduled landing time in fact.
Beautiful full flaps landing Runway 26L at dawn with very low speed. We stopped in a very short distance.
We parked side by side with an AF A332, finally at 6:40AM, 30min late.
VIII - DEBOARDING
Exit through the long corridors..
IX - IMMIGRATION/LUGGAGES/CUSTOMS
The immigration was not a mess at the beginning but i wanted to use the automated border control, it wasn't working whether the agent told me I could go on the queue for it, nobody was there though, not surprisingly. So we had to go through the manual ones. Then I saw PARAFE (system name) working, so I told my mother to come and go this way. It worked for me but not for her, so she took a long time to be helped by other pax. I tried to come back but an agent told me not to, I replied we will have to wait for an hour if I don't come back, well, he obviously did not care. So stupid.
We then made our way to the K Arrival Hall which was/is a mess with a lot of flights arriving, especially from Brazaville at that moment.
No customs control for us and it is the end of the routing !
Thanks so much for reading/watching/writing
See more
Verdict
Air France
6.6/10
Cabin6.0
Cabin crew7.0
Entertainment/wifi6.5
Meal/catering7.0
Kuala Lumpur - KUL
6.9/10
Efficiency6.0
Access8.0
Services6.5
Cleanliness7.0
Paris - CDG
5.6/10
Efficiency3.0
Access4.0
Services5.5
Cleanliness10.0
Conclusion
Comfort, I'm putting a 6 because the pitch was huge and I managed to sleep for 3hrs ½ which is pretty good, even if the reclining is not better than the AF246.
Crew : they lose points with their attitude (dustbin and chatting with colleague at the inflight bar) but they were mostly friendly and professional, that's a 7 mark.
Meals : The hot meals were good, very good for the first one, normal for the second one. But the entrées were not good and the breakfast is not convincing. That is a 7.
IFE : working, that's already nice, but bad screen and too old cabin anyway. That makes 6.5 but no more in my point of view. Punctuality : it is one of the longest non-stop flight to/from Paris CDG, so 30 minutes late is not a drama, it is just 1/26th of the flight duration. BUT, it is 30 minutes, so I think we can retract 0.5 pt for every 10 minutes late.
I already explained for CDG the bad mark, bad attitude, and organization for immigration.
Access not convincing : our driver was blocked at the exit because his professional card did not work. The outside staff was very lazy and kind of rude with him, that is unacceptable. Almost no services, I don't know why i put a 5.5^^ Clean : that is one thing I am sure of !
0 LIKESLIKE TO THANK THE AUTHORTHANKS ! FLIGHT-REPORT LIKED
Thanks for reading in the first place ! The main issue at KUL is the runways' state, they are in a very bad shape and it makes the aircraft lose speed while taking off, which is not brilliant ! With that 3-4-3, if you are 1 pax or 2, all depend of your neighbour in fact, if you have luck, good flight, otherwise... well it could have been better !
Catering is quite ok. I had this chicken too, they should change meals more often...
Concerning CDG, organization for immigration is always messy and crowded. They should really think to make it in a better way. With all those flights with QF and MH, you must be silver in One World program :)
Silver ? I am at 1/12th of being Bronze with BA, and almost the same with QF^^ The MH flights were codeshared KL, so no oneworld miles to claim afterwards (I tried) for them. The routing is in fact 60% ow, 40% Skyteam, not sufficient enough to be a real FF anyway ;) But on my next routing, being FB Silver should be easy !
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4 Comments
Unfortunately KLIA wasn't too spotter-friendly from my experience as well, even if it might not be as big of a problem for you.
It's good you got some sleep at least, the flight is very long and takes place at night. I guess the pitch helped.
IFE reminds of the IFE screen found on my flight from MUC to DEL onboard an LH A346. Nothing fancy but better than nothing.
Meals do look okay in general, the main of the first meal sounds tasty.
Thank you for concluding this series and see you in the next one!
The main issue at KUL is the runways' state, they are in a very bad shape and it makes the aircraft lose speed while taking off, which is not brilliant !
With that 3-4-3, if you are 1 pax or 2, all depend of your neighbour in fact, if you have luck, good flight, otherwise... well it could have been better !
Catering is quite ok. I had this chicken too, they should change meals more often...
Concerning CDG, organization for immigration is always messy and crowded. They should really think to make it in a better way.
With all those flights with QF and MH, you must be silver in One World program :)
Silver ? I am at 1/12th of being Bronze with BA, and almost the same with QF^^
The MH flights were codeshared KL, so no oneworld miles to claim afterwards (I tried) for them. The routing is in fact 60% ow, 40% Skyteam, not sufficient enough to be a real FF anyway ;) But on my next routing, being FB Silver should be easy !
Thanks for the comment!
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