Review of easyJet flight from Toulouse to Paris in Economy

Hello and welcome on board this new report, first flight of 2019 it will be my 4th report in English a good translation exercise for me. It’s also a good chance to show you the new Airbus A320neo of Easyjet on a classic French route.
Once again this is just a translation of a report published on the french part of the website.

introduction

Flashback in November 2018 when my girlfriend and I try to find a flight in order to see is family who live in Paris during the early days of 2019. The goal of this long week-end is to spend time with is relatives and to celebrate (with a bit of delay) Christmas. We’ve got a good deal for the second week-end of January about 60€ for a return flight per passenger with Easyjet. For example, the lower price you can get with Air France is around 100 €. Best of all, the schedules are good and we will land at Charles de Gaulle airport which is very effective if you live in the North of the French capital.

Which gives us the following routing: 

Toulouse to Paris is the busiest route in Europe with more than 3.000.000 passengers per year if you count the flights to CDG (900.000 p/y) & ORY ( 2,200.000 p/y ) of course this is not a new route on the website data base but all these "shuttle" flight were reported on the market leader Air France.
But the challenger as become stronger & stronger every year and with 4 based aircrafts Easyjet is now the Toulouse plateforme leader thanks to this european flights where Air France keeps only domestic routes and is cash cow shuttle service.

Currently easyjet schedule 7 flights per day to ORY (domestic & french overseas airport) and 2 flights per day to CDG (international AF HUB).

Friday morning at Toulouse blagnac Airport

With a take-off scheduled at 8:15 AM, we need to be awake at 6 o'clock to be on time with enough margin to take our flight of the day. Once again the street car will drop us in front of the terminal for a fair price of 1,50 €. 

We need to climb up stairs to go on the departure level.

Always few people at the Easyjet baggage drop off. It's not always the case before leaving on christmas eve. I spent 40 minutes waiting in the queue to let my check in bag.

On the FIDS our flight is scheduled on time, after a look on Easyjet app it's the case our aircraft is well coming from is Paris base.

Luckily despite a high affluence we wait just few minutes to pass the security check. From my side i should remove my shoes, complete an explosive test on myself and one on my Ipad. I was cleared to fly without any doubt this time!

After repacking my stuff, we need to cross a new large duty free shop. It's now the new modern airport standard.

After the duty free shop, a new part of the airport is this new small shopping mall in the middle a piano is available for the musicians (it's quite common in France on big railway station or airports).

During the extension of the airport, a good lifting was carried out in the hall C with a beautiful decoration and some new restaurants as the Spanish "Mas que Menos" and "J'go" for the kitchen of the south-west of France.

We reach the gate 31 where our flight is called for boarding.

No doubt it's the good gate.

Electronic boarding pass available on Easyjet app.

Few minutes later we are allowed to go on the pre-boarding enclosure. From the window we can see our aircraft at is parking stand. No doubt it's an A320neo. G-UZHS as been delivered just two mounth ago she's brand new !

Our seat are located at the rear of the cabine, so we need to spend few icy minutes on the tarmac in order to climb on board by the rear stairs.

Few pictures of our aircraft of the day + a highlight on the new CFM Leap 1A engine who power's the Easyjet Neo's.

On board the Easyjet A320neo

We climb on the rear stairs some people spend a long time to get on there seats. Hey it's cold outside !

Fuselage shoot.

We've got a warm welcome from the flight attendant located at the rear galley. On board you can found the same cabine than in the orange airlines A320 but with a small color differences on the seat covers.

When I get on my row I saw my seat occupied by a couple Mr & Mrs 30D/E transformed themselves on 30E/F. I'm not very pleased by this change and I told us to change our seats after the end of the boarding. My girlfriend allocated at row 31 is not really lucky too, her neighbour, will miss to knock out her with is trolley bag. Finally after these neighborhood problem the boarding completed announcement give us the opportunity to move (with crew agreement) on the triple seat 29 A/B/C totally empty !

View from my new seat on this A320 who's leaving to Paris Orly.

The seat is the new Recaro SL3520 with the new seats cover's available on the last A320/1neo the simily leather look's really nice, you can find exactly the same seat at the rear of BA's A320neo. The seat base is quite slim but for a short hop like ours it isn't realy unconfortable. Pitch is in improvement especially if you compare with the old Airbus A319 cabines. Ceiling panels are quite new too but Easyjet do the choice keep the "no smoking" sign.

Inside the cabin the boarding operations are completed few minutes ago, we are just waiting the authorisation from the tower to push back.

Safety demonstration are performed on french and a second time just with audio in british as we're pushing back.

Engine start is a bit noisy because of the low frequency developed during the start phase of this last generation turbine.

During the taxi we are close to the hall B, home of Air France … but today you can mainly see aircraft subcontracted by AF/A5 like the Avro of Jota ensuring the flight to Strasbourg and the Fokker 100 from Avanti air comming from Nantes.

Taxiing for a take off runway 32.

Goodbye Blagnac see you on sunday.

We pass near the cargo appron with the usuals aircrafts, the Boeing 767-300ERF of Star Air who will go on the Cologne/Lyon/Toulouse line and some B737's cargo from ASL airlines and West Atlantic who fly to CDG and LGG.

A little bit further we saw this Boeing 737-800 of the polish charter Enter Air who landed yesterday from Malaga.

After this short airport visit it's time for us to take place on the runway.

The A320neo is more powerful than the A320 with classic engine option and with our low weight of today we're just rocketing above the runway.

It's rare that I show you a picture of the delivery center taken so high in the sky.

The day rises on Colomiers and Cornebarrieu, the neighbourhood cities of the airport.

Pink sunrise this morning.

Nice light on the Pyrenees mountains.

The rising sun show us a nice light show on the wing.

Inside the cabine you can see the natural mood light or poor man's lighting system.

We reach our cruise altitude above the city of Moissac and Castelsarrasin. You can easily recognize this point with the confluence point between Garonne and Tarn rivers. And the white smoke comes from the nuclear power plant of Golfech.

Sharklet view.

Around Bergerac the visibility is reduced by an overcast. For Toulouse citizens we see this part of the french territory like the "North" !

Lets have a look on hand pocket where you could find all this stuff like the buy on board and duty free booklet.

The regulatory safety card is common for A319, A320 and A320neo aircraft.

The on board "Traveller" is filled with advertises there is the few interesting pages, Fleet presentation is almost updated the orange airline as   now 19 A320neo in service.

Air to air catch attempt with another Easyjet aircraft flying southbound.

The Buy on board menu for the "bistro" service on this flight, price are quite good (same as the terminal shops). But the food served is kind of junk food.

Cabin crew will provide late service within the 40 last minutes to allow passengers to sleep during the first half of the flight. They also reduced the public announcements to the safety related topics.

Outside sun is up !.

For today's route lets have a look on flightradar24.

Passenger announcements regarding our upcoming descent are broadcast by our cabin crews. We didn't getting any words from the flight deck during all the journey.

Clouds are now closer.

Few little turns to reach our approach heading.

Few seconds of cloud surfing.

Before jumping into the Parisian haze.

Cabine is now ready for landing.

We see the ground during the last seconds of the flight.

Paris in the rain

Smooth landing and easy breaking using the spoilers and reverses.

We leave the runway 09L where we have just landed.

We have to wait the take off of two other aircraft before crossing the 09R/27L

Like a ghost coming from the fog Concorde double Fox welcome us, an always moving vision for all aircraft enthusiasts.

Few meters away we can see some Joon's A320. This branch of Air France with is messy brand & business plan should disappear soon from the sky.

At terminal 2D you can see a large tail variety like these A320 from Air Malta, an A319 of Bulgaria Air or this new Air Baltic A220-300.

Connected at terminal 2C we saw this A330-200 from XL Airways France who will fly to Fort de France in French carribean islands.

Today we've got a remote parking stand not a good news when it's raining… We stop next to this Easyjet Europe A320 who will soon leave Paris to Milan Malpensa.

Unboarding took a lot of time mainly because the airport ground crew spent at least 10 minutes to dock the rear stair at the aircraft door. I was one of the last souls to leave the aircraft and this picture gaves me a rebuke from the cabine purser. She ask me if I took a picture of the cabine. I said yes, then she told me to delete it… Yes but no… I haven't got any problem to cancel a picture where you can identify a passenger or crew member but I don't know why I should cancel that one (I don't see anything on this subject in Easyjet travel policy).

I leave the aircraft by the front stairs with a nice view on the Leap engine much more bigger than the previous generation CFM56.

As many know's take pictures of the aircraft on the tarmac is not really welcome at CDG airport, I try to stay discreet with my camera in order to avoid another "NO PHOTO!". It's time to leave the aircraft so bye bye Hotel Sierra !

A small pax bus tour (we've done less than 1km) but luckily on a dry space ! Our driver let's us at a door for pax bus arrival it's just a corridor driving to 2 escalators. Upstairs you can find a strange area mix with closed check-in desks and baggage conveyors not an usual airports layout.t.

We follow the exit signs. Just before the leaving the Air side there is an active customs control, of course no problem for us. We go on to the RER/TGV station it's a bit tricky to avoid all the other passengers/and people who waits passengers mainly because the corridor is small.

As you can see on the FIDS, it's quite a busy time for aircraft movement at the terminal 2D

2D terminal is one of the closest to the railway (TGV high speed/RER urban train) station but you still need to walk close to 10 minutes to reach it.

We cross the bridge between terminal 2D and 2E/F whe can have a look on this Easyjet A319 who will go at Manchester.

After the bridge you need to go downstairs using escalator, you can find one of the CDG symbol, the curved flight display. 

The railway station is underground, you can find many transport ticket seiling machine and some agent dedicated to help passengers.

As we get into the plateforme. A train just arriving ready to get new passengers, just the time to climb onboard and seat before the train start his journey. Normally this train is scheduled to do just few stops before Paris city center but not this time.This change will transform the train on Rugby maul when he finally stop in Paris. As tell as Aeroport de Paris advertise "Paris loves you" but they forget to say that she's really tactile ^^

I hope you enjoyed this report and I wish it was understandable ! See you on new reports, have nice flights !