Review of Air France flight Toulouse → Paris in Economy

Hello and welcome on board this new report ! Like other Fristes who have already published their story (mainly on the french counterpart of the website), I had the chance, on this first weekend of October 2022, to participate in the Flight-report Gold 22 dinner on the banks of the Vistula.

introduction

For my second attendance to this diner, direction Warsaw! That's pretty good has I've never been in Poland.

To get there from Toulouse is not the easiest thing. No direct flights between Toulouse and Poland this summer (we had to wait for the opening of Krakow this winter by Ryanair). There was a time when Ryanair offered direct flights to Modlin (Translation of Stansted/Bergamo or Beauvais in Polish) but this link was closed long before the arrival of the Covid.

It will therefore be a flight with a mandatory stopover, which forces me to take a day off, 3 solutions are approximately in the same price range, Lufthansa with a mandatory night at MUC on the return and a TLS-FRA-WAW-MUC-TLS routing could be fun but service is really poor on economy. KLM with a one-night stopover at AMS and a very late return on Sunday.

And my choice, with AF correct departure times even if the return is a little early on Sunday and the prices a bit more expensive. In the end I would even pay a little less thanks to my AF "Weekend" card bought on sale (25€) it's really a bargain when you fly in Europe / domestic and you are nobody at Flyingblue FF program. The icing on the cake, my av-geek side will be satisfied with 2 scheduled flights aboard the new Airbus A220-300, an aircraft that I had never take since it entered into service.

Which gives us the following routing:

The line between Toulouse and Paris is one of the busiest route in the world in terms of the number of passengers transported (a little less than 3 million before covid) even if a large part of the traffic passes through the south of the capital and the Orly airport. Air France's HUB, Paris CDG nevertheless picks up around a quarter of the passengers arriving in the capital, and unsurprisingly a good number of them, like me, are on a connection with the Air France that day.

Until this summer Easyjet operated almost a daily flight between Toulouse and Paris CDG, this is no longer the case during this winter season… AF the single airline on the line offering up to 8 flights per day, a number which has increased these last months. We will also note the use of smaller modules, the usual A321 being very often replaced by Airbus A318/319 or their A220 successors for the winter season, you can also have Erj-190 from HOP!

In terms of reports, even the english part of the website is well supplied with no less than 6 stories mostly on Easyjet (just to let you know there is 49 reports in french ^^), however, surprisingly, this will be the first ever report (in english) onboard Air France new Airbus A220!

Morning mistake

As usual I take good margins before my departures, this saved my trip. Indeed it is only a few minutes before arriving at the airport that I realize that contrary to what I was thinking the flight leaves at 9:20 a.m. not at 10:20 a.m.! Fortunately, it's only 8:30 a.m. when I get off  the bus.

Entrance via the arrivals level where many people are waiting for arriving passengers.

I go up to the departures level, there are a lot of people at the AF counters! I will not drop off my luggage for this short journey.

I timed the security check crossing 4 min announced on the screens, I will take 5 minutes with staff once again friendly and smiling. The area is well organised, apart from the T1B in Lyon, I do not see a large French airport that is better organized for these controls.

The display indicating the flight schedule not bad for a Friday morning.

Quick crossing through the Duty-free zone with the usual sales of perfumes, alcohol and cigarettes as well as some more local products.

 In the mall all the shops are open today not so obvious during the last two years.

A large number of passengers are also waiting in the hall C and i would also meet the wife of one of my former colleagues leaving for London.

Toulouse airport has large bay windows that allow you to photograph the traffic but also the Airbus factories, where you can see the Beluga group based in Blagnac

The aircraft being finished are mainly intended for Asian customers, whether Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, China Eastern or the more confidential Taiwanese Starlux. But also Western customers with Airbus A350s for Air France and Delta or A330s for Virgin and the French Air Force.

There are also prototypes aircrafts like this Airbus A321neo performing some touch and go for a test flight.

On the passenger side of the airport, we find this very eurowhite Air Nostrum Crj-1000 which ensures the morning flight to Madrid.

On the Hall D I can have a look to my aircraft which is already arrived from Paris CDG.

Passing in front of this AF Airbus A320 who will reach Orly.

Alright, enough hanging around i take the direction of Concourse D where my flight is schedule to board.

When I arrive inside the Hall D, boarding of my flight is almost complited.

I try to take a good picture of my plane of the day but not very easy from that place, let me still give you its pedigree. As you may have noticed, it is an Airbus A220-300 registered F-HZUG, it was delivered less than a year ago to AF and was named "Provins".

By the window I can see this Easyjet Airbus A320 with the "Faro" sticker taking off for a return to it's base in Nantes.

Boarding in progress

I use the Air France app for the boarding pass.

Boarding via the jetbridge but with dirty windows.

Fuselage shoot 

ON Board the New Air france Airbus A220

And here I am for the first time on board an A220. There is an elegant cabin that smells like new. I must admit that AF offers much nicer seats than what we find at LH for example.

The luggage racks are almost all full mainly due to the fact that the passengers do not store the trolleys on the side and pile up jackets and coats. I return to my seat in row 26 at the window on the duo side. Casually, this duo configuration is a real gain in comfort compared to the 3x3 found on the overwhelming majority of medium-haul aircraft

The pitch is not so bad and there is a lot of equipments on the back of the seat such as a coat hook, an USB socket and also a small new feature in AF cabins, a support for a tablet/smartphone.

Another good feature of this new aircraft is the windows size they are HUGE! The plane next to us is an Airbus A321 of Air France coming from Paris

Boarding continues and we will be about ten minutes late because of two passengers who did not show up for boarding but who had checked some luggage that had to be unloaded. If we exclude these missing passengers, the flight is full.

Detail on the ceiling light, no screen as you can have at Swiss but a fixed smoking indication and 2 signals, the usual for belts, the other to indicate if the wifi is working.

Push back and engines start making a kind of rather strange metallic squeak when starting and during changes in power regime. During  this time the crew provides safety instructions.

Then we begin our taxiing for a departure on runway 32. We will overtake this AF Airbus A320 by the taxiway on the right until it finishes is pushing back.

We are passing in front of the cargo appron where we find the usual visitors, the Boeing 767F of the Danish Star Air operating the flight to Lyon and Koln cargo hub and just behind it the DHL B757F connecting it to its Hub in Leipzig.

Another aircraft parked at the freighter and unusual visitor is this very exclusive Airbus A319neo ACJ belonging to a private jet company based in Switzerland.

After this few minutes journey around Toulouse airport (one of the longest that you can have on the Toulouse platform) it's time for take off!

No waiting to be lined up, but we will have to wait for this Airbus A321neo test aircraft to land on the parallel runway before starting our flight.

The engines are pushed to take-off thrust with a rather particular metallic noise when revving up, then once the power is reached, it seems that the aircraft takes off very quietly and silently. Here we are in the air with a nice glimpse of the Airbus factories and the A321neo seen previously which has finished decelerating on the parallel runway.

Straight to the grey clouds !

Fortunately the cloud layer, although a little gray, is really not thick and we quickly find a magnificent blue sky once our initial climb has been completed.

Small detail on the beautiful winglet adorned with Air Orient's historic winged seahorse nickname "The Shrimp". For me this logo is one of the most iconic of the airlines industry.

In the cabin, although the flight is full, the atmosphere is calm, we can see that the mood-light installed on this recent aircraft. The wifi will be functional on this flight as well as the sockets, the free internet message pass is always appreciated. A large selection of newspapers and magazine is also available via AF-press app for free.

It's the world upside down, the further north you go, the clearer the sky we get !

Until the clouds disappeared almost completely during the crossing of Dordogne which I think we can see Bergerac in the distance.

Then Périgueux city is playing hide and seek with a cloud bank,

While I try to follow the route through the window, the snack service is offered, it will be coffee and Breton cookie, acceptable for a morning domestic flight.

The cloud production plant below leads me to think that we are coming close to the Loire with a high probability that this is the Chinon nuclear power plant. We see that national security is assured, Google Maps blurring or low cloud layer the plant will remain hidden ^^.

 Our beginning of descent is announced above the great cereal plains of Orleans.

 The route following flightradar24, with a cruising altitude of 30,000ft. Usual routing for this kind of flight.

We are approaching Ile de France region from the North-East with the Seine river which we joining at the height of Poissy. Under our wings passes the forest of Saint-Germain.

We continue our flight over the meanders of the Seine bypassing Paris to the north on the border between the Hauts-de Seine district and the Val d'Oise district we find the Port of Gennevilliers on one side and Argenteuil on the other.

 A few moments later we change again of district with, this time, the Seine-Saint-Denis, the city and the island of the same name.

A few seconds later, (much faster than on the RER B) we turn around the runways of Le Bourget business airport. You can guess the shape of the Airbus A380 MSN4 which joined the collections of the Air and Space Museum in Le Bourget in 2017.

Our destination is in sight! We passing by the South the immense airport zone of CDG.

 Well we are arriving in Meaux, it would be good if we didn't take too long to turn around to reach the CDG runways, wouldn't we?

 And this will be the case a few minutes later once the city of Meaux behind us, we will note the small banks of fog persisting above the meanders of the Marne river.

Final approach will take place on the South doublet, the landing as well as the braking will be very smooth on runway 26L.

We quickly leave the runway and crossing the 26R without any hold.

 I see in the distance the double Fox Concorde, the most beautiful of birds, which has become the most beautiful of flowerpots.

Air France headquaters

This Boeing 777 will let us the right hand priority 

Last turn before joining our parking stand

The jetbridge will be quickly connected to our plane and ground operations begin quickly. General overview of the cabin equipped with large luggage compartments yet barely sufficient to accommodate the numerous cabin luggage of some passengers (some of whom were above the authorized number or dimensions). Large luggages racks that only leave a small head space and I would see 2 people banging their heads quite violently.

I would descend among the last with polite greetings from the gate crew.

The "small" nose of our elegant bird

Then I reach the terminal using the impressive and numerous glass walkways that bristle the T2F, this will also allow me a last view of my first A220, bye bye Uniform Golf I feel that we are going to see each other again (and faster than I thought ^^)

I go up the glass corridors of terminal 2F in order to go up one level to make my connection with my next flight to WAW which will also leave from 2F, so a very simple connection. To be fair, it's simply the first time I've been in transit at CDG!

 So let's take a look at the different screens that display the connections in order to know the status of my next flight.

Here is the end of this report i will try to translate the first leg of the return flight also operted on the A220. Hope to see you soon !