Review of Air France flight from Stockholm to Paris in Economy

This is the return flight of this business trip in Stockholm :
AF1062 : CDG – ARN reported here
AF1063 : ARN – CDG (You are here)
This time I knew that Seat 10F was a real window seat, despite Seatguru’s erroneous claims, but its was on the wrong side from a lighting point of view, and I changed to Seat 7A when I checked in on the Internet. Not that it would change matters much eventually, but I did not know it yet.

I was about to leave to the airport when I received this information by e-mail and SMS. I find it downright offensive that in case of a delay, the check-in deadline never changes (and probably that of the luggage drop too). This does not have an impact if you used the OLCI and have hand luggage only (which was my case), but for all other passengers, the message is :
“We KNOW that your aircraft will be an hour late, but you MUST waste that hour at the airport, or else we cancel your ticket.”

I had seen in an old webpage that there was an observation deck at Terminal 5. The staff at an information desk did not know of one; since I had ample time, I went all the way to the far end of Terminal 5 and saw no signage about one.

I don’t know about flights to Japan (日本, on the fuselage), but I doubt that SAS serves the Netherlands (the houses and windmill on the wing) with a 747.

Terminal 5 is the main international terminal and the waiting line there was doing nothing to promote SAS or Norwegian to fly back to France.

Some plane spotting on the way from Terminal 5 to Terminal 2. It was sometimes impossible to eliminate the reflections because I could not reach the windows.
Thomson 767

An SAS 737-600 at pushback

And a SAS 737-700 ready to taxi

A Nordica CRJ-700

Two sightings of QR’s 787 taxiing before leaving

Different types of turboprop aircraft : ATR-42, Fokker-50, ATR-72 (from left to right)

Close-up of the same. This ATR42 appears to be based in ARN; I already saw her several times

Amapola Flyg Skyways Airlines

SAS ATR72

Norwegian 738

Air Berlin A320, in new livery

Two NextJet Saab 340

ARN (and Sweden in general) is serious about parenthood equality

The baby care facility is hidden in a recess far left beyond the sinks.

Note the hung decoration above the diaper change folding table.

The waiting time at the security check was minimal and the staff was friendly

I had no hesitation about pressing the leftmost button – this was the first time I noticed this in ARN.

Now I know where to find salmon to bring home – it is actually dead in front of the security check exit.

More NextJet Saab 340. Nextjet must have a full time livery designer – no two aircraft seen that day were the same.

Another Amapola Flyg Skyways Airlines Fokker-50, in a different livery

Air Berlin A321, with new sharklets and old livery

TK A321

Primera Air Nordic 738

BA 767

Finnair A319

These DHL freighters are a usual sight at this time of the day

Using maximum optical and digital zoom magnification ratio, I managed able to identify G-BMRA and confirm that this is a 757-200

Last, not least : this Ethiopian 787 was parked in the freight area, and eventually got towed to her gate, to operate a flight departing at 20:00 to Addis-Abeba via Rome.

The delay had worsened to 2 hours on the FIDS. Note the Jet Airways share code flight number of my flight.

I do not see how they could identify that my flight was late, but wifi was free. (I apparently did not try to connect to the Internet the last times I flew out of ARN, so I do not know if there is usually a charge for the access there).

Flight Report’s home page at that time

It also gave me access to the schedule of the trains from CDG and confirm to a passenger that sorry, but he had no chance of catching the last train. I felt lucky to have used my car to go to the airport, because delayed flights would mean looong lines at the inefficient taxi stands of CDG.

A distribution of vouchers for food (valid anywhere in the terminal) was announced. I was amused to see at least 80% of the passengers raise and wait patiently in line, all the more that the staff seemed to have to answer to many questions. Were they that hungry, or afraid that the voucher supply would not be enough ? I waited until the line had nearly disappeared.

For those familiar with Swedish restaurant prices, 150 SEK (about 16 EUR) does not buy much in a restaurant.

I could only buy one of the cheapest appetizers in that restaurant with that budget.

My company would certainly not balk at an expense claim for dinner when a delayed flight leaves after dinner time, but I decided to play it cheap and tried to probe further.

I tried the restaurant at the (not so) far end of the terminal

This Italian restaurant was more affordable, and I settled for a 159 SEK chicken breast with rice and tomato sauce.

“Fast service” means 30 minutes between this picture

… and this other one. I advise Mainland China’s restaurants against hiring Swedish staff (I remember a Chinese waiter once told me he could not take the order for a given dish, because the 20 minute waiting time would be too long).

This restaurant overlooks Terminal 2’s luggage delivery room, but that view does not provide any additional detail.

Air Alsie (a Danish business charter airline) Dassault Falcon 2000LX

The AF A321 taxied in at long last. She was F-GTAE whose Skyteam livery gave me a good smile, from overhearing French passengers eating their meal next to the window :
- I did not remember the Air France livery was like this?
- They changed it after the Rio-Paris crash.

Eager passengers started waiting in line on both sides of the gate a long time before boarding actually started.

Meanwhile, this BA A321 pushed back

And taxied away to fly back to LHR

This time, I knew already that my Economy Flex gave me SkyPriority, and I was not going to waste this privilege. Maybe another Flight Reporter in the jetbridge ?

Fuselage shot

All passengers were obviously impatient to depart, and boarding looked unusually efficient.

My window seat

I had never noticed that the middle seat belt was not the same color as that of its neighbors

The safety card both sides

I did not really have a 61 cm wide space

… including 8 cm between the cabin wall and the armrest on window side

… because on the middle seat side, my neighbor was the kind who was commandeering full control of both armrests, and then some more extra space, while sleeping. My bad luck was that he was not even supposed to be there : he sat there by mistake with a ticket for seat 7E, and the passenger who was supposed to sit there unfortunately accepted to sit in the other middle seat, since it made no difference to him. Well, it turned out to make a difference to me !

The seat pitch measured my way, from seat limit to magazine pocket appeared to be 3 cm more than on the A321 on the way in,

…because the seats were different, with a more recessed magazine pocket. The real seat pitch, i.e. the distance between the same part of the seats of two successive rows was the same, but there was more space to fit your legs if they were (a lot) longer than mine.

Marathon carpet cleanliness test : passed with flying colors

Pushing back at long last

It was literally a couple minutes before 10 pm, i.e. 2.5 hours late

A last Saab 340 seen on the way

I recently wrote that I had never ARN’s Runway 08/26 being used, but I’ll never be able to write it again.

This is one of ARN’s short runways, but F-GTAE was airborne rapidly… a few minutes after the time she was scheduled to land in CDG.
(thanks to RI 777 for the correction : 01R/19L is 2,500 m long too)

Apart from a brief sunset lighting on part of the reactor before the plane veered to her main heading…

…. There was not going to be much in way of a landscape, due to the rapidly vanishing light and to the cloud cover

The captain announced with a thick French accent that we were expected to reach Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport at a quarter past noon, which triggered chuckles and humorous comments in the cabin, on the “it will take him another 12 hours to sort out the communication with air traffic control with that level in English” line.

Any new menu since last time?

Well no. It was strictly identical to that of my AF1063 flight two weeks earlier, admittedly in the same month, so I’ll copy-paste my previous evaluation : “all that was decent, period, and was enough to make it to my home without feeling hungry”.

The flight thereafter was nothing special, only that I wanted to use my reading light, since there would be no landscape en route. Well, forget about that, only the aisle one in my row worked. I mentioned that to the FA (of course, she could do not nothing about it, but please take note of it so they fix it in CDG).

No ID check (but there had been one at boarding) when deplaning at 00:30 am.
In her standard announcement just after landing, the purser initially announced that it was 00.30 pm, but instantly corrected herself. That crew was definitely not used to landing after midnight.

Going down through the checked luggage delivery room. I had none, and this time, I found easily the fast access to Terminal E’s parking lot.

It was 01:44 when I received this obviously automatic message of apologies from AF, but I had already sunk to sleep at home : the road traffic from CDG had been VERY smooth at that time!

This is the end of this flight report. I had again no time for tourism in my agenda during this business trip, but as a bonus, I’ll tell you about my subway trip from my hotel with Madeleine.
Globen is both a tram (Tvärbanan) station, here on the right (thanks again to RI 777 for the correction)

… and a Green subway line station, where a C20 series train approaching here.

No matter if it is a newer C20 train…

… or an older Cx train, the driver leaves his cabin to go on the platform look at the CCTV screens on the platform, in a cabinet above, or overhead below, with a microphone to announce the departure of the train.

I connected at T-Centralen station, and when the passenger exchange is completed, the driver announced the closing of the doors

Would I ever see Madeleine again… ?

No, Madeleine was not some charming Swedish girl I had met, but the name of this C20 train, because they all have a first name (and also a serial number, of course). I have been told that these were the names of children, who may have grown up to adults today, because the C20s entered revenue service in 1998-2004.

The C20 rolling stock is operated in 2-train or 3-train multiple unit consists. Should I find it a symbol that Muhammed teamed here with Melker ? The former was named after the Prophet of Islam, the latter (Swedish for Melchior) after one of the Magi who appeared in the first weeks of the history of Christianity.

If you wonder about how multi-culturally diverse Sweden has become, I suggest you read the opening section of this ARN-SXF report by RL 777, a promising young Flight Reporter hailing from Sweden. I was not surprised when I read it (I suggest that you read the entire FR, by the way).
This is what the C20 trains look like inside

In this older Cx series train, there is an escape ladder overhead, and also the same advertising as in the picture above, reminding passengers that they should vaccinate against the TBE (tick borne encephalitis), a potentially deadly disease transmitted by ticks in the nature. (France is one of the few Western countries which are not affected as of now)

Have a safe summer vacation !