Review of Air France flight from Paris to Stockholm in Economy

Hello everyone and welcome to the fourth and last part of this series covering my recent family trip to Portugal in July 2016. This part will cover the last flight from Paris CDG to Stockholm ARN, after connecting from Lisbon. The flight number is AF1062 and the flight was scheduled to be operated by an Airbus A321.
Background:

My family usually travels somewhere outside of Sweden during the summer months. We had nothing planned for Summer 2016 but my mom repeatedly told me she had to go somewhere outside of Sweden. Finally things materialized and we booked a trip to Portugal from July 12 to July 19. The fares and timings weren't excellent as we were late to the booking party but my family would get away from Sweden and that was what mattered for my family. Air France was the cheapest option for flights from Stockholm to Lisbon around these dates, Air France had to be choice. We stayed in Lisbon and Algarve for a few days each before going back to Stockholm via CDG. This was my first trip with Air France, three out of four flights were scheduled to be operated by A320s with the last one by an A321.

NOTE: Pictures used in these report were taken with my phone and camera
The cover picture shows another AF A321.

Part 1 - ARN-CDG AF1263, Air France, Airbus A320-200, F-GKXR - Here!
Part 2 - CDG-LIS AF1124, Air France, Airbus A320-200, F-GKXV - Here!
Part 3 - LIS-CDG AF1225, Air France, Airbus A320-200, F-GKXT - Here!
Part 4 - CDG-ARN AF1062, Air France, Airbus A321-200, F-GTAT - You are here!

These flights took place on 19 July which means they took place after the horrible attacks in Nice, I was extremely saddened by this event and my deepest sympathies go out to everyone affected by this event and all other recent horrible events in the world.
There was definitely increased security at CDG this time around in comparison to when I transited through CDG on 12 July a week before. The staff had created a pathway with security ropes unlike last time when the area was clear, a lot of security personell were standing by the ropes watching the passengers. Everyone had to follow the pathway, no matter if you were a connecting or arriving passenger. It lead to a mandatory passport control.

It was a short walk to the departures level of terminal 2F after passport control.

Flight AF1062 to Stockholm ARN was assigned to gate F49 according to this FIDS.

Walking to our gate.

There was a lot of activity going on just before entering the gate area. Music, dancing and all that good stuff.

My mom really liked this architectural design of terminal 2F but there was however one issue for us, it was around 30 degrees Celsius in Paris at this time and there didn't seem to be any A/C working in here so it was also around 30 degrees Celsius inside the terminal. People were sweating a lot in here.

Gate F49, a sparsely filled gate 1,5h before our departure to Stockholm Arlanda.

There was not much to do before going back to Stockholm, I decided to walk to the far end of this gate area to snap a few spotting shots from CDG.
Air France A318 pulling in to its gate.

Air France B772 in the old livery taxiing out with an Aeroflot A321 taxiing in.

Air France B772 taking off from runway 09R located way behind.

Air France A321.

Air France A343.

HOP! E-170.

Air France B77W.

Air France A320.

Air France B77W climbing out of 09R.

Air France A388.

Another AF A343.

77W.

Vietnam A359 to HAN.

AF B77W.

Boarding for flight AF1062 was scheduled to commence at 15:30 local time, i.e. 30 minutes prior to departure. Marathon has written several great reports on this exact flight, now it was time for me to report it as well :). There were a decent amount of people by the gate at 15:30 and a lot of people lined up before any kind of announcement had taken place. We eventually also lined up, just to make sure we'd get any space for our hand luggage later on.

Boarding for Y was finally announced at 15:48 local time. I was the first one in my family to get my BP and passport checked but the staff told me to wait for a minute after I was through, the rest of my family went through and the staff told them to wait too. The staff did something on the computer for a few seconds before turning around and telling us she would have to get our bags checked-in. Why? The flight was completely fully booked and there would be no space left in the overhead bins according to her, she got our bags checked-in at no additional cost. That was a breeze for us, we wouldn't have to worry about finding space for our bags on the plane. I only saw us getting stopped before walking to the aircraft, not sure how many other passengers got their bags checked-in for free.

Walking to our plane using the jetway, I didn't snap a single acceptable shot of our ride throughout the flight. Our particular A321 was delivered to Air France in March 2008.

Flight information:
Airline: Air France
Flight no & route: AF1062 CDG-ARN
Aircraft type and registration: Airbus A321, F-GTAT
Scheduled time of departure (actual): 16:00 (16:37) / 4:00 PM (4:37 PM) UTC +2
Scheduled time of arrival (actual) : 18:30 (18:42) / 6:30 PM (6:42 PM) UTC +2
Scheduled flight time (actual): 2h 30 min (2h 05 min)

Entering our A321, there were FAs greeting everyone upon boarding.

This A321 featured a cabin with the older seats, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The seats in these older A32X cabins are comfortable IMO, they've got adjustable headrests and more legroom than the seats in new medium-haul cabin.

Seat pitch was good.

I apologize for not having a single picture of the legroom without my camera bag in it.

Overhead bins.

Overhead bins were closed by 16:10 local time. Boarding was officially done.

Air France A321 in the Skyteam livery. There was a manual safety demonstration in the cabin before we departed out of Paris CDG.

We pushed back from gate F49 at 16:24 local time, our scheduled time of departure was 16:00.

Taxiing to runway 09R for our departure to Stockholm ARN.

Easyjet A319.

Yep, we're definitely in Air France territory.

The Air France Concorde on display at Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle.

ASL 737.

The weather was great in Paris this day, over 30 degrees Celsius together with clear skies.

International activity at Terminal 1.

Rolling down 09R.

We took it to the skies at 16:37 local time, climbing out.

Parts of CDG were clearly visible after takeoff.

CDG's Terminal 2 was showing its face a few seconds later.

Lots of widebodies down there.

The safety card of this Air France A321.

Charging my phone with my powerbank.

The last shots of the French mainland until I fell asleep for a while.

Martin1405 was able to track my flight once again, thank you for that! All FR24 screenshots in this FR are provided by him. I think I was sleeping while he snapped this screenshot.

I slept for roughly 30 minutes before slowly opening my eyelids a few minutes before the FAs came to our row for today's service. The service was made at 17:20 local time, around 40 minutes post- departure. The FAs made it to row 19 at around 17:25. There was a tiny plastic tray with natural yogurt and some kind of fruit which I originally thought was blood orange but is most likely grapefruit thanks to Eminere™'s fair suggestion on the comment section down below. A hot sandwich was also handed out with the drink service being conducted shortly afterwards. The natural yogurt was just natural yogurt, I love yogurt so I instantly liked it. The fruit was the most interesting part of this service, I first thought it was blood orange by the looks of it but the fruit had an extremely bitter taste, grapefruit is known for its very bitter taste and it actually looks a lot like grapefruit. It must've been grapefruit in the end, thanks to Eminere™ for clearing this up. I ate it all up despite the bitterness. The hot sandwich had some sort of cheese filling and was tasty. I had OJ and coffee as my drinks as always. The offering was good and much better than the competition to/from ARN.

I finished it all up, it was enough to keep me satisfied until I came home. The FAs on this flight were pretty normal, they did their job efficiently.

A wet towel was found under the small plastic tray.

The flight was pretty uneventful except for the in-flight service, I either slept or just relaxed throughout the flight.

I decided to pay a quick visit to the lavatory around 25 minutes before landing. There was quite a bit of traffic for the lavatories, there were four people waiting in line behind me when this picture was taken.

A few shots of the lavatory.

A look at the cabin of this A321 to Stockholm ARN. The flight was completely full but it may seem like there are a few empty seats on this picture. The reason was that we had many children onboard and there were 7-8 people behind me waiting to use the lavatories as I took this shot. There were also a few passengers walking around.

Soon the captain told us we where descending into Stockholm-Arlanda Airport, a minute or two after I made it to my seat after the visit to the lavatory.

I know I'm back home in Stockholm when I catch the glimpse of such a large amount of islands! The Stockholm archipelago consists of around 30 000 islands.

Lining up for runway 01L.

Viby, Norrviken and Sollentuna are visible on this picture. Edsviken is also visible on this picture, Edsviken is a narrow inlet of the Baltic Sea running through some of the municipalities in Stockholm.

Parts of Upplands Väsby with the Marabou chocolate factory barely visible on the bottom right corner.

Parts of Märsta and the E4 motorway.

We touched down on runway 01L at 18:42 local time (6:42 PM), 12 minutes late in other words but that was hardly a problem for us.

Slowing down.

Air Berlin A321 Sharklets just arrived from Berlin TXL.

Thomas Cook Scandinavia A333.

Another DK A333.

Taxiing to Terminal 2.

DHL's first 757 with Winglets, this is an ex-Yakutia bird.

Wamos Air 747 next to us, it was operating a flight for Vueling from Barcelona.

We disembarked at 18:52 local time.

Walking to the terminal.

Thank you Air France for a good flight back home!

Walking to the baggage hall to collect our bags.

There were loads of people in the baggage hall and there just kept coming more and more people after I took this picture. There were passengers from a full AF A321 from CDG, KL 737-900 from AMS, Air Berlin A321 from Berlin and a Wamos Air 744 from Barcelona (operating for VY). Terminal 2 is small and the same can be said for this baggage hall. The place got jam-packed after I snapped this picture but thankfully we were one of the first ones to get our bags so we just got out of here as fast as possible. They are planning to add two new piers for Terminal 2 but construction for those won't begin until 2021.

Walking to the P21 multi-storey carpark where my dad parked his car.

We initially had a hard time trying to locate our car, we feared this would happen when we parked here a week ago.

My family finally found the car a few minutes later, it was time to head back home.

Leaving the P21 carpark.

Leaving Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.

Driving on the E4 motorway towards Stockholm C.

We were at home approximately 45 minutes after disembarkation at Arlanda Airport. Thank you so much for taking your time to read this FR :). Have a good one, see you later!