Review of Air France flight Paris → Toulouse in Economy

ORY-TLS is one of AF’s busiest French domestic routes, and as such as been described time and again on this website, no fewer than 26 times and counting, plus the reverse direction … but all in French only. That there was not a single report in English was the reason for producing this English version of a report posted on Christmas Day, 2013.

Not much changed since: the internet access is now unlimited in time in ORY, and AF now operates A321s only on this route.

If you are curious enough to read this Flight Report to the end, you will be rewarded with tourist bonus on a monument in Paris that few foreigners get to visit, and even fewer the way I did.

When you want to fly to Toulouse from Paris on Christmas eve at the end of a full day of work, the choice is limited to the direct flights of Easyjet and Air France, and the latter was cheaper. I saved some pennies by flying with Junior on the 20 EUR cheaper “Mini” fare (with no checked luggage included), and Mrs Marathon was on the standard fare (with one piece of checked luggage, plus a second one due to her soon to expire Gold status). That fare also allowed her to indicate a preference for a window seat that I shamelessly planned to commandeer.



Yes, I was traveling in a family group including a child, but shooting a pop-up claiming that I « could » benefit from preferential fares did not mean that AF would offer them when I bought real tickets for a day when it made special sense to be traveling as a family.

AF seemed to have difficulties understanding what a window was, because when I received Mrs Marathon’s BP by e-mail the day before, it had an aisle seat. Was it because that my wife had marked her preference for an aisle seat on her profile, at the time when she was flying back and forth to Asia? Anyway, no matter if it was on Row 1, it was a bad point for AF.

We took a taxi from home, and made it to the airport in a decent amount of time despite the heavily congested road traffic. The curb access to the Departure Halls was temporarily closed due to on-going work, but the escalators were immediately after the doors at the Arrivals level.



Before dropping the checked luggage in the automatic machine on the left, we first needed to obtain the luggage ta tags at these machines.



When you are three travelers on two separate tickets, including a Flight Reporter taking lots of pictures, a matter as simple as checking in on a machine takes time, and an airport staff came to inquire if I needed help. This time, the check-in machines did accept to provide my luggage tags.



The Mini fare does not include seat selection at booking time, but you can change seat at the airport… assuming that the leftovers are to your linking : there were only a few isolated seats here and there if we did not want Seats 8B and 8C.



Since Mrs. Marathon had a more expensive ticket, she could choose to change to another flight, which “could incur additional charges”.



I never understood why Mrs Marathon refused to depart twenty minutes earlier and connect in SXB (Strasbourg). For as little as 604 EUR extra charge, it was a bargain, but an additional flight segment on December 24th would not have saved her Gold status. She could also have chosen to fly the next day, but she obviously did not have any of the spontaneity that AF expected of her.

Mrs Marathon could change her seat too, and her Elite status gave her access to Seat 5B (and also some other seat here and there further back, but no window seat anywhere).



Anyway, I received BPs (although I had already printed them in my office), the label tags and we went to the automated luggage drop-off. But the staff stopped us there: since Mrs Marathon had a Skypriority status, she had to go to the old school counters for Elite passengers, because “there was no waiting over there”. There was no waiting at the automated machines either, but as I explained earlier, the luggage were under the name of Mrs FB-Gold, and there was no way she would play with machine that I could use thanks to my proud FB-Ivory status. That was the consequence of our fare optimization.



There was no problem at the Elite check-in. Where is the lounge ? Upstairs, beyond the security check, but Mrs FB-Gold could invite one passenger only. The BP check was automated, with turnstiles which are much more luggage friendly than those of the RER-B train line serving CDG.



And then the security check seen here from above, where the hand luggage of Marathon Jr was thoroughly searched by an unquestionably courteous agent.

-Why me ?
-It’s a random check

No matter if he is with kin or with friends, in France or abroad, in an airport or anywhere else, Marathon Jr is the world record holder of random checks of his luggage. When you are too young, too bearded, too dark skinned, randomness has a special meaning.



The boarding room was quite full, but nevertheless quiet. Mrs Marathon, due to her FB Gold status, could invite one fellow traveler in the lounge and was never as much courted in an airport.



Never venture, never win : all three of us came to the lounge’s welcome desk, where the staff indeed welcomed us with a smile after checking our BPs. She obviously knew very well that we knew very well that this was a small (Christmas?) favor.

(For purists, AF does not name it a salon (=lounge), but a less prestigious patio, so please leave space in what follows for my customary second degree humor.)



No doubt about it, AF’s lounge dedicated to their Shuttle (busiest domestic) flights passengers, who are only FF Elite since there is no J on these flights, sets the standards at the highest world levels. Let’s start with the refined food offering :



… that you can see here in detail



Foof is amazingly plentiful, because there two other buffets, with one with even more diversity..



This was the entire set of Christmas Eve banquet for the Elite passengers flying to their home town.



That’s not all, there also a bar which surpasses the wildest dreams of bubbles or of black beverages.



Bubbles are only Perrier water and Heineken beer, and this cupboard is decorative only, because it is locked. But there is another one, in front of the welcome desk, maybe so that the staff can check nobody drinks too much.



Now, the coffee was decent, and it was not the instant kind.

You have to adapt to the aesthetics of the seats, and also to the shaky tray tables. No, there were no power ports there for a laptop.



None there either



More seats with creative aesthetics, but still no power port.



But after a careful search, I found two power ports, and also a copy of l’Equipe abandoned by a passenger, that no lounge staff would remove.
(I did not take a picture of it, but there was a newspaper stand with a decent choice of French titles, plus the Herald Tribune).



The result was that it you wanted to surf on the internet while being alongside the windows, you had the choice between placing your power cord across the corridor…



… or trusting the autonomy of your laptop battery.



Since I did not expect much of the gastronomy "made in AF lounge", the main interest in being invited by Mrs Marathon was the free wifi internet access.

Like in CDG, my professional laptop was incompatible with the wifi in AF’s lounge (at time of posting these were the only wifi networks that I could not connect to, but I would later have a similar problem in Changchun, where more than internet access was missing after deplaning from a CKG-CGQ flight).

But like in CDG or CGQ, my smartphone was compatible, so I could take the traditional corporate screenshot and also surf for six hours if the flight had been really badly delayed.



The other means was using the fifteen minutes of free internet access then generously offered by ADP (Aéroport de Paris). This was in 2013: internet access is now unlimited in ORY and CDG.



Because at that time, fifteen of internet access was better than six hours of non-access if I did not have a phone. Note that the welcome page of FR had changed in the meantime.



Nocturnal plane spotting under rainy weather is challenging by itself …



…but when you combine it with the plane spotter unfriendliness of a prefect who must have retired a few decades ago, it requires abnegation.
(This open observation deck was closed after failed terrorist attacks using RPG-7 racket launchers against EL Al planes in January 1975).



I did what I could to take a picture of this aircraft.



There is no scheduled DOH-ORY flight : the DOH-CDG flight was diverted to ORY that night due to the weather conditions.



Flying on Christmas Eve means a high probability of children on board, like this family of five kids (including two reflections).



I had time, because the flight had meanwhile been delayed ten minutes.



That gave me time to go and check the toilets – no, there were none in the lounge : I needed to go two levels below join the other non invited FB-Ivory passengers. Like in CDG, changing a baby’s diapers is a strictly female task, from the pictogram point of view, because men could enter there too.



On the male side…



…it was a design which will soon be vintage, but shoudl age gracefully and was clean anyway.



The hot air hand dryers avoid having paper towel debris, or wet cloth towels that nobody replaced.



A closeup on the simple but efficient door lock



The time came for boarding : we went down to the boarding room



… which was not crowded ; there were even spare power ports here in the center.



Some passengers were already waiting in line



And then came a PA announcement : the flight was going to be more delayed, because the plane had just arrived. I went back to that lounge which was even emptier than before.



The flight was now delayed 20 minutes



We went down again to the gate, and this time boarding was proceeding.



There were newspapers in the airbridge, some were dry



… and others weren’t



I took this picture to avoid having any regret about the non-window seat, because the rain made any interesting shot impossible.



A smiling welcome by the purser at the plane’s door. All Flight Reporters know that the advantage of Row 1 is the increased legroom.



The disadvantage is that there is no Row Zero under which a hand luggage could be slipped, and a FA courteously took mine for the duration of the take-off phase.



The legroom was increased, OK, but by how much ? This is the answer: 53 cm from the seat’s limit to the bulkhead, to be compared to a typical 27 cm in Economy to the previous seat. It is not a fair comparison, because you can slip you feet under the seat in front (minus your hand luggage if any), and you can’t under the bulkhead.



All passengers had boarded : the door was soon to be closed, and two airline staff passengers who had been waiting in the galley went to their seat. No AF-bashing this time: the flight was booked full, there was no J and therefore no possibility of an infamous “buddy upgrading”, and they were more probably waiting to be sure not to be deplaned in favor of last minute paying passengers.



The captain offered excuses for the delay due to the weather conditions (the wind was indeed at gale levels since the day before), and announced that we might see Santa Claus en route… and confirmed the sighting on route of a tiny red light (at the wingtip…). I found this joke somewhat dumb, but let’s admit it targeted the kids on board. Anyway, a short taxi, take-off and quasi instantaneous turbulence.



Beyond the curtain in the front, there were two FAs, a trolley with sweets and snacks (you get one OR the other)… and my laptop in the small cupboard next to the front left door. Like a drug addict suffering from a severe withdrawal syndrome, I held for 19 minutes until I called for a pusher, and pressed the FA call button. Relief came in thirty seconds with my laptop and a smile.



This was my version of the sweet-snack-drink



This picture is proof that I went all the way to Row 8 to offer to give back to Mrs Marathon her seat with a 53 cm legroom, but she decided that it was no longer worth it for the remaining half hour of flight.



She had taken the snack version of the menu of the airline which made the sky the most beautiful restaurant on earth, or something like this.



Descent, reasonably soft landing and a rather short taxi to the terminal. The plane was F-HBNA, delivered on 1 July 2010 (Thanks to Airfleets).



Another AF A320 and an Easyjet tail.



Exit landside



FB Gold or not, luggage checked at the FB Elite counter or not, there was no priority delivery at destination, but our own arrived twelve minutes after we had deplaned, which was a commendable performance.

Now we had to get our rented car. As is customary in TV reports, I inverted some parts of the pictures to hide the brands and make them impossible to identify, to avoid any suspicion of hidden advertising.



OK, where is terminal D, Exit H, Parking P2 ? There was no signage about this location: this was a typical example of locals who do not imagine that visitors do not have an innate knowledge of the configuration of the place.



Firemen taking a break outside told me that we should go to the left, and eventually find these signs



It was easy afterwards



I liked the lighting of this parking lot



No, we did not need to go down on the left.



Five minutes later, I was leaving driving a car with nearly full tank, and I had reached my destination an hour ahead of schedule, i.e. midnight on Christmas Eve. Even when flying with an airline making the sky the best place on earth, you must accept to go down on earth and celebrate Christmas with your kin.

Most of my readers most probably know it all about Christmas – admittedly with national variations – so I decided to backtrack somewhat in space and time to propose a tourist bonus in Paris. That I had the matter for posting it was due to two unrelated and unpredictable events a few years before.

The first event was the arrival at Mrs Marathon’s office of a new and friendly colleague, whose husband had a key non-political job in an office located at 55, rue du Faubourg St Honoré. The second event was the arrival of a new political manager at the same address.

Foreign readers probably don’t know it (and most French readers don’t know it either, because the media seldom mention it), but this address is that of the Palais de l'Elysée, i.e. the French Presidential Office, and that new political manager was present (as of posting) President François Hollande. His election was equally crucial for my visiting the place.



Having a special contact with a key person in the Elysée Palace was not enough to be admitted there: that person had to be allowed to invite you. Private visits used to be unusual, and previous President Nicolas Sarkozy had even explicitly forbidden them. You then needed to have a professional reason to be authorized to see the porch of Elysée Palace from the inside, whether you were a VIP or a journalist.



There was a U-turn in this matter (and many others) after the last election: President Hollande decided to explicitly authorize such visits, on conditions to not create disturbances, which meant very small groups, on week-ends only, with the obligation of going out of the building at a moment’s notice to remain unseen from VIPs and vice-versa. Paparazzi would be disappointed, on the other hand, this restriction makes the day of amateurs of pictures of a historical building. The reason you will not see a single barrier in what follows is that there were none.

There has been pictures of the President of the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan) at that time in a Flight Report, but you will have to wait some more time for a picture of the French President who was only a flight of stairs away from me that day. You won’t even see the charming female guard who moved away from her position so that I could take this picture.



The first room on the right is called the Tapestries Room, due to the Gobelins tapestries which decorate the walls since the presidency of Félix Faure (1841 – 1899), the only President who died in office in this presidential palace, although he was not performing official duties at the time of his death. (He was found dying with his denuded mistress, a century before Viagra became a much safer drug than the one he used for this kind of recreation). This is where people who accompany visitors are kept waiting.



The adjoining Murat Room takes the whle width of the building ; its size makes it possible to hold the Cabinet Meeting (the President, the Prime Minister and all ministers) each Wednesday since the presidency of George Pompidou in the early seventies.



The smaller Aides de camp Room is used for official lunches or dinners, with a maximum capacity of 23 persons, probably after moving out all the furniture which is usually there.



True to its name, the Ambassadors Room is where the President of the Republic receives the credentials of newly assigned in Paris foreign ambassadors.



The complication clock on the chimney indicates the phases of the moon and is decorated with a sculpture of Phaeton’s fall. Its ring using organ pipes has been deactivated : it was much too loud!



Clocks are plentiful at the Elysée Palace : there are a total of 320, including some quite unusual ones, like this vase whose two rotating rings indicate the hour and minutes… and it was a quarter of an hour ahead.



King Louis XV offered what was then called the Hotel of Evreux to his favorite, Marquise de Pompadour. The adjoining room, called the Pompadour Room, was then her parade bedroom; it is now sometimes used to receive visitors.



The Portraits Room was decorated in the mid 19th century with the portraits of eight sovereigns at that time. I believe that they were painted in early 1861, because there are both Italy’s King Victor-Emmanuel II, crowned on 17 March, and Prussia’ King Frédérick-William IV, deceased on January 2nd the same year.



Separation of Church and State is a big thing in France ; how many citizens know that the Portraits Room has a medallion representing Pope Pius IX, the last sovereign of the Papal States? A further quirk of history is that this very conservative pope condemned explicitly the separation of Church and State in his Syllabus published in 1864.



Which reception is most difficult to manage? Our guide did not hesitate and mentioned the Christmas party thrown for one thousand children aged 6 to nine, invited from all over France without their parents, in this Hall of Festivities, built at the end of the 19th century. You can guess the challenge for the staff who must control them while leaving them good memories of that once in a lifetime event.



We did not get to visit the Presidential Office : for that, you need to wait a typical of three hours in line on the Heritage Days (the third week-end in September, when many public and private buildings usually closed to the public are open for visitors).