Review of Air France flight Paris Stockholm in Economy

Airline Air France
Flight AF1062
Class Economy
Seat 19F
Aircraft Airbus A321
Flight time 02:30
Take-off 19 Jul 16, 16:00
Arrival at 19 Jul 16, 18:30
AF   #24 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 5956 reviews
Rl 777
By 722
Published on 12th August 2016
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.
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It was a short walk to the departures level of terminal 2F after passport control.
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Flight AF1062 to Stockholm ARN was assigned to gate F49 according to this FIDS.
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Walking to our gate.
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There was a lot of activity going on just before entering the gate area. Music, dancing and all that good stuff.
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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.
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Gate F49, a sparsely filled gate 1,5h before our departure to Stockholm Arlanda.
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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.
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Air France B772 in the old livery taxiing out with an Aeroflot A321 taxiing in.
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Air France B772 taking off from runway 09R located way behind.
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Air France A321.
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Air France A343.
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HOP! E-170.
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Air France B77W.
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Air France A320.
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Air France B77W climbing out of 09R.
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Air France A388.
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Another AF A343.
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77W.
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Vietnam A359 to HAN.
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AF B77W.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)


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Entering our A321, there were FAs greeting everyone upon boarding.
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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.
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Seat pitch was good.
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I apologize for not having a single picture of the legroom without my camera bag in it.
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Overhead bins.
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Overhead bins were closed by 16:10 local time. Boarding was officially done.
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Air France A321 in the Skyteam livery. There was a manual safety demonstration in the cabin before we departed out of Paris CDG.
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We pushed back from gate F49 at 16:24 local time, our scheduled time of departure was 16:00.
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Taxiing to runway 09R for our departure to Stockholm ARN.
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Easyjet A319.
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Yep, we're definitely in Air France territory.
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The Air France Concorde on display at Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle.
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ASL 737.
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The weather was great in Paris this day, over 30 degrees Celsius together with clear skies.
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International activity at Terminal 1.
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Rolling down 09R.
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We took it to the skies at 16:37 local time, climbing out.
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Parts of CDG were clearly visible after takeoff.
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CDG's Terminal 2 was showing its face a few seconds later.
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Lots of widebodies down there.
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The safety card of this Air France A321.


Charging my phone with my powerbank.
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The last shots of the French mainland until I fell asleep for a while.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A wet towel was found under the small plastic tray.
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The flight was pretty uneventful except for the in-flight service, I either slept or just relaxed throughout the flight.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Lining up for runway 01L.
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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.
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Parts of Upplands Väsby with the Marabou chocolate factory barely visible on the bottom right corner.
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Parts of Märsta and the E4 motorway.
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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.
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Slowing down.
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Air Berlin A321 Sharklets just arrived from Berlin TXL.
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Thomas Cook Scandinavia A333.
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Another DK A333.
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Taxiing to Terminal 2.
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DHL's first 757 with Winglets, this is an ex-Yakutia bird.
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Wamos Air 747 next to us, it was operating a flight for Vueling from Barcelona.
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We disembarked at 18:52 local time.
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Walking to the terminal.
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Thank you Air France for a good flight back home!
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Walking to the baggage hall to collect our bags.
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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.
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Walking to the P21 multi-storey carpark where my dad parked his car.
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We initially had a hard time trying to locate our car, we feared this would happen when we parked here a week ago.
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My family finally found the car a few minutes later, it was time to head back home.
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Leaving the P21 carpark.
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Leaving Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.
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Driving on the E4 motorway towards Stockholm C.
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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!
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See more

Verdict

Air France

7.3/10
Cabin8.5
Cabin crew7.5
Entertainment/wifi5.0
Meal/catering8.0

Paris - CDG

8.5/10
Efficiency9.5
Access7.5
Services8.0
Cleanliness9.0

Stockholm - ARN

8.0/10
Efficiency9.0
Access8.0
Services7.0
Cleanliness8.0

Conclusion

A good flight with Air France, good catering that is way better than the competition. Crew was pretty standard.

Cabin - Older cabin, good seat pitch and comfortable seats with an adjustable headrest.

Cabin crew - Standard cabin crew that did their job efficiently.

Entertainment - Window view

Meal/catering - Yogurt, probably grapefruit, a vegetarian hot sandwich and your usual drink service. The yogurt was normal which isn't a bad thing, the fruit was bitter but the hot sandwich with melted cheese was tasty. A good offering for this flight, much better than what the competition offers to/from ARN.

Information on the route Paris (CDG) Stockholm (ARN)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 78 avis concernant 2 compagnies sur la ligne Paris (CDG) → Stockholm (ARN).


Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Air France avec 7.5/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 2 heures et 44 minutes.

  More information

9 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 362676 by
    martin1405 36 Comments
    Thank you for sharing another great FR! :)

    Hope you had a decent experience with AF! Would you fly with AF again??

    "My mom really liked this architectural design of terminal 2F"
    - I also like it a lot! It's sad that it was quite hot here, though.

    Amazing spotting pics at CDG! I love the small HOP! E-170!!

    "The flight was completely fully booked and there would be no space left in the overhead bins"
    - The same happened to me on the flight to ARN. The A321 flight was completely full, too.

    The old cabin looks more comfortable than the new medium-haul cabin IMO.

    "I apologize for not having a single picture of the legroom without my camera bag in it."
    - That's absolutely no problem. Please don't apologize. Don't worry!

    No problem for the screenshots again!

    The catering looks much better than on the flight before. I am glad you liked it! It was better on LX1254!

    Descending into Stockholm is so beautiful! I miss it....

    Thanks again! See you!!! Maybe I will come to ARN with AF next time. Who knows..? ;)


    • Comment 362694 by
      Rl 777 AUTHOR 802 Comments
      Thank you for your very nice comment :).

      "Hope you had a decent experience with AF! Would you fly with AF again??"
      - Thank you, I had a pretty good experience with AF. I would definitely fly with them again but it all comes down to price, timing and availability :).

      "Amazing spotting pics at CDG! I love the small HOP! E-170!!"
      - Thank you very much, glad you liked them :). I appreciate it a lot.

      "The same happened to me on the flight to ARN. The A321 flight was completely full, too."
      - Your 1254 flight and this 1062 flight shared a lot of similarities, both were operated by an A321, both were full and both arrived at ARN at a similar time.

      The older cabin is very comfortable, greater seat pitch, comfortable seats and they even feature adjustable headrests!

      Catering to/from ARN is good with AF, it used to be even better before when they served an actual tray but it's still better than the competition.

      "Descending into Stockholm is so beautiful! I miss it...."
      - I'm glad you liked Stockholm, hope to see you here again in the future.

      I really hope to see you here again no matter what airline you decide to fly with :).

      Have a good one, see you.

  • Comment 362690 by
    eminere™ 271 Comments
    Could the mystery fruit be grapefruit?
    • Comment 362703 by
      Rl 777 AUTHOR 802 Comments
      That is probably it, I originally never thought about grapefruit. It looks like grapefruit and grapefruit is known to be very bitter, It must've been grapefruit. Thank you so much! I updated the info with your reference.

      Have a good one, see you!
  • Comment 363596 by
    KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6739 Comments
    Thanks for sharing this FR and series! Awesome spotting at CDG and great views of CDG on takeoff!

    It is nice that AF puts these older, more comfortable cabins, on the longer European flights. Once again, catering looks better on these longer flights.
    • Comment 363964 by
      Rl 777 AUTHOR 802 Comments
      Thank you for your very nice comment :).

      Their older cabins are really comfortable, suits well for a flight like this one. AF definitely has an edge over the competition to/from ARN.

      Thanks for stopping by, have a good one and see you later!
  • Comment 372741 by
    NGO85 SILVER 1980 Comments
    Thanks for sharing this FR with us!

    Fantastic spotting at CDG on that sunny afternoon. Not a lot of carrier diversity, but at least AF has a good mix of Boeing and Airbus planes.

    “Overhead bins.”
    - Those bins look extraordinary empty… what was the gate agent stopping you for? Doesn’t look like bags needed to be gate checked on this flight.

    “International activity at Terminal 1.”
    - The TK A321 in Borussia Dortmund livery was there^^

    The catering is a nice mix of a hot sandwich and what I would consider breakfast items. A little strange to see at 4pm, but breakfast is good any time of the day. As discussed, that is most definitely grapefruit. A very well known fruit grown in my neck of the woods.

    Shame to get the old cabin again, but at least you got to fly an A321 instead of A320s like on the previous 3 flights in this series.

    I guess I'm all caught up in preparation for ARN-IST.
    • Comment 372792 by
      Rl 777 AUTHOR 802 Comments
      Thank you for your very nice comment :).

      Thank you very much, I appreciate the positivity!

      “Those bins look extraordinary empty…”
      - I am sorry, that is totally my bad! We were very early when it came to boarding, boarding continued for at least another 10 minutes after that picture was taken. There were more than 100 pax left when that was taken haha.

      “The TK A321 in Borussia Dortmund livery was there”
      - Indeed! Unfortunately that bird has been repainted now.

      That is really cool, grapefruit is damn healthy of what I've heard.

      Yep! It was nice to have a little bit of variety.

      Hahaha!

      Thank you very much for stopping by and for your support.

      Have a good one, see you!
  • Comment 397394 by
    marathon GOLD 10137 Comments
    (I missed this report when it was published. Belated thanks for the tribute !)
    No A/C in summer in that terminal ? I can easily imagine the resulting condition.
    The extremity of jetty 2F2 is indeed the best for plane-spotting; arguably the only decent one, actually.
    The lack of space in the overhead bins is a systematic problem on this line. I don't mind planes being full (I'd rather AF be profitable), but I do mind their encouraging passengers to maximize their cabin luggage through the existence of zero checked luggage fares.
    The old cabin was indeed more comfortable, but their are a vanishing breed, sigh...
    As already commented in another FR of yours, and like Martin1405, I see nothing wrong in having your hand luggage in the picture.
    Interesting information about the expansion of ARN's Terminal 2
    Thanks for sharing !

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