Review of easyJet flight Nice → Paris in Economy

"It is impossible to make a system foolproof because fools are so ingenious

This engineering saying could be the moral of my flight on the way in, because I had really done my best to miss our plane despite all the good will of Easyjet. Had I learnt the lesson? Or was I still a hopeless loser (a “cannonball”, in French slang) when it comes to flying low cost? (See the report of the previous flight for more on this matter). This you will discover in this flight report.

We left at the time suggested by my relatives, taking into account the probable absence of traffic jams and the ease for reaching the tollway. I nevertheless managed to have to make a U-turn when seeing that a hardware store was on the wrong side of the road, because “keep straight on the main road and you will reach the tollway” was a typical simplification by a local.

Trouble started at the exit towards the airport, because of road maintenance. The signage indicated that the routes were modified, but it would have been more useful to modify the signage. Good thing that there was no traffic jams, because once you are on the wrong side of the tollway, crossing it to reach the airport which is in plain view “over there” was not easy. I lost at least ten minutes on that one.

Once on the correct side, it was reasonably easy to find the route to the lane dedicated to the rented car return. I only needed to know that this was not a traffic jam, but simply half a dozen locals using this lane as an unofficial parking lot to avoid paying for the real parking lot while waiting for a passenger. A few more minutes lost.

They should take lessons from the Chinese who park on the emergency lane of the expressway to PEK (and other airports) without blocking the way of other users. That is where 5,000 years of civilization show :)

So once I had passed this line which was not going to move, I reached the car rental line, waiting behind another customer who had had a minor accident, had filled an accident report. That required a special return procedure and the rental agencies had a single staff each: processing that unlucky customer seemed to take ages and Mrs. Marathon was getting increasingly nervous about the clock which kept ticking.

She would have gone ahead of me to check-in, only that since we had no checked luggage, it would have been useless. I don’t know if she had noticed a minor scratch on our car (not caused by me, but not recorded when we had taken the car), but I had my own secret reason to worry about the time it would take to return this car.

But she knew that I had not found how to lock the gas tank door after refueling this vehicle which was much too advanced for me,

… so she too had reasons to worry about the duration of that procedure.

The scratch and the fuel door did not weigh much compared to the dents on the previous car, and I was signed off quickly once it was my turn. Walking at a brisk pace to Terminal 2, because we were this time at the correct terminal.

There was once more ten minutes of wait at the security check ; it was 19:55, i.e. 30’ to the closing of the flight and Mrs. Marathon was already looking at the priority access on the left.

This time, I removed dutifully the two bags of liquids, the empty vacuum flask that I open… and no, it was not quite empty, but I did not spill much water on the conveyor belt. I narrowly avoided a seventh cannonball there.

On the other hand, going through the security check took more time than expected, and I had to veto a WC stop by Mrs. Marathon. I did not even see any signage for toilets on the way from the security check to the boarding gate.

We boarded immediately :

There was a jetbridge for front rows passengers, ending with stairs down to the tarmac for rear rows passengers.

An Easyjet A319 reached her parking position at the next gate

The access to the rear door of our A320 (you can tell an Easyjet A320 from an Easyjet A319 from the fact that both over two overwing emergency exits).

Only after I had taken these pictures (and other less interesting ones) did a ground staff approach and tell me that picture taking was forbidden on the tarmac. She was not aggressive at all and rather polite. It did not matter, I had already all the pictures I wanted, and after all, refueling was in progress, an operation when non certified electric appliances are not welcome in the vicinity, although there is some urban legend around this issue.

We went up the aisle behind a passenger who settled in my window seat. I politely told her that she had taken my seat. She first doubted that my seat 21A was the window seat and I showed her the seat diagram overhead and she moved, mumbling that anything, it was the same seat. I did not try to bridge the cultural gap between a Flight Reporter who finds a squatter at his window seat, and a passenger who is moved from her seat by a dumb passenger when all seats are the same width and pitch.

I had won at the Easyjet seating lottery : I had saved the fee for seat selection for this night flight and had been assigned a window seat not overwing. There was no way I would relinquish it, even on a night flight.

In all fairness, not only all the seats in an Easyjet A320 are the same, from our experience in G-EZUS the day before and G-EZUC that evening. I doubt that passenger whom I sent back to her seat 21C would have made the difference between an Easyjet A319 and an Easyjet A320, on the other hand Mrs. Marathon did notice that the incoming aircraft was shorter.

The ceiling indications were like this.

The seat pitch , measured as I do usually from the edge of the seat to the magazine pocket. Sandals show that yes, we had had a warm weather on the Riviera.

22 cm weren't much space, but It was compatible with the typing of a Flight Report (after takeoff, of course), because the seats did not recline (and I hardly ever recline mine on a short flight, so it was not an issue for me).

The safety information card did not change

AF and U2 tails, and U2 winglet

Pushback and taxi a few minutes ahead of schedule

Alignment, and last chance for a mildly sharp night shot

Landing Runway 04L of another aircraft. The light trace showed that with exposures times that long, pictures by night were hopeless with my camera.

I tried against all hope, but they entered into the abstract art category

Like on any Easyjet, catering was either BOB (buy on board) or DIY (do it yourself), i.e. cookies of unspecified origin and a bag of instant coffee to be dissolved in a cup, all on a not very clean table tray.

This Taiwanese cup promised me a sunny life (日光生活 ) but there is not much sun when you have no water because no toilets seen after the security check because emerging from it late because of six cannonballs accumulated landside, which earned me an eighth cannonball.

It was an eventless flight, with a good view of Paris, where the Eiffel Tower was made easy to spot by its rotating projectors, but my camera was not sensitive enough for that.

Arrival at Orly (south terminal!)

There was an endless walk to the exit, all the longer that one of the travellators was stopped.

I took a lot of time to take this picture,

… because it was the first time I was seeing in a French airport a pictogram hinting that a man could change a baby’s diapers too.

I took so much time that a staff here in the background went up to me and told me something like "There is a place over there where you can take pictures”. I did not try to determine if her tone was unpleasant because she did not want me to take this picture, or because she was inherently unpleasant, even when informing a passenger of the stairs leading to an observation deck. I no longer was on the Riviera, welcome back to Paris…

I had no intention to go to that observation deck, made depressing by all its anti-terrorist protections, by night on a pollution alert week-end. I had already collected enough cannonballs.
There was another endless walk where I had the impression of backtracking, in order to reach the parking lot.

Rather than parking at space G7, it would have been cheaper to take a G7 taxi (G7, originally Groupe 7, is the name of a major taxi company in Paris).

Exit from the parking lot of Orly-South Terminal and an eventless drive back to Paris.

Only when approaching Paris on expressway A6 did I learn that driving restrictions had been decreed for the next day, due to the pollution levels.
It is not that bad every day in Paris : there can be beautiful weather in Paris, and many chimneys do not mean a lot of smoke.

You do not need to rent an overpriced room in a top range hotel for this view : you can go for free on the terrace of one of the buildings of the Printemps department store on boulevard Haussmann and discover this view of Montmartre with the Trinité Church in the foreground.

There is also an unusual view of the Opera Garnier

Most tourists who see it from street level do not realize that it is much taller than all the other buildings of the neighborhood.

This is the end of this FR ; thanks for reading me !