64 reviews
Hello everyone,
Here is my third Flight-Report and my first one in English, my first two FRs being in French.
I am sorry I don't have a lot of photos during the flight, it was a 3 hour red-eye flight without any view and I slept during almost the whole flight. Furthermore, there was almost no service, except a glass of water/orange juice/tea/coffee.
However, I think it still makes sense to report this journey, since Joon may soon disappear and Istanbul Ataturk is no more in use. This flight has maybe the least practical departure time (4:15AM) and lack of service on board doesn't help.
I was returning from my prolonged weekend in Caucasus, which was simply amazing, with great view, great food and great people, for those who are interested, please check the bonus at the end of this FR.
For a flight departing at 4h15, I left my hotel near the airport a little bit before 2h00, I ordered a UberMax, after a very comfortable journey of 15 minutes and a little bit more than 4 euros, I arrive at Ataturk airport a little bit after 2h00.
The legroom is of course great:
Istanbul Ataturk airport looks very empty, so different from during the day, this airport is so busy during the day (and until late night, but not at 2AM!) First security check at the entrance, there was no one else, except the staff and me.
The departure hall is also very empty, let me check the FIDS, there are several departures during the night.
Same people are queuing for their flight for Kabul (!) I just realized that we were at the junction between Europe and Asia…
Here is my counter for my Air France flight for Paris, totally empty. However I just need to get my paper boarding pass from the automatic kiosk:
The immigration and security check are also empty, I can even chose the agent for immigration ;P, sorry there is no photo for this part. Here is the FIDS of the night, with Paris among all those exotic destinations: Mazar-i-Sharif then Kabul in Afghanistan, Baghdad and Basra in Iraq, Mitiga in Libya, as well as Algiers and Tehran, before the early morning departures for Europe and also a flight for New York at 6:45? Maybe the schedule is optimized for connections…
After the security we have this large duty free shopping mall and this famous store we find in almost all major airports in the world:
The flight for Kabul is delayed as people were still queuing and my flight seems to be on time:
Then I arrive at the gate after my boarding pass being checked by a smiling nice agent who asked my origin and said "Nihao" to me. The waiting area is quite full but I managed to get a seat, anyway we will be boarding soon:
The boarding process is fairly fast and quite well organized, it is just a A320, not a wide body used by TK. Here is the buy on board menu and the information about IFE, the application YouJoon should be installed in order to access the entertainment program:
The cabin with colours of Joon, the seat is quite thin and pitch not very sufficient for a little bit less than 4 hour flight (I am 193cm…) but still better than other low cost airlines:
Then I slept all the way until being woken by a stewardess to open the window shades for landing. I wa tired and slept more than 3 hours, however my night was still way too short… Here are some views of the aircraft taken after disembarking, a livery that will disappear soon and Air France has already taken back this Paris-Istanbul flight route, with the same flight schedule (arrival at IST at 3AM and return 4AM to arrive at Paris at 7…)
Some advertising of Guangdong province of China and the new maritime silk road, but Air France just stopped the route to Guangzhou in Guangdong province (from 5 flight per week to 0…):
The immigration was quite fast, I used Parafe system that worked that day, otherwise it would take much longer:
A lot of arrivals from all over the world, but on the screen in the lower right corner, there is some information about the strike of RER B with trafic disrupted from the airport, so French ;-P:
No luggage for me this time, I exit the arrival area and direction RoissyBus for the center of Paris:
Thank you for reading. Since this report is really short, let me post some bonus from my long weekend in Caucasus:
Batumi:
Black sea in Batumi:
Black sea near Georgia-Turkey border:
View of Batumi with some very modern buildings:
Some Georgian food, here is Khinkali, kind of similar to Chinese Xiaolongbao bit much bigger:
Khachapuri (Adjarian, with cheese):
Khachapuri with spinach:
Georgian dumplings, really close to Chinese ones:
Tblissi:
I just spent several hours in the Georgian capital, it was too short to enjoy the city:
Yerevan, I did like the Armenian capital, some views from Cascade, with Mount Ararat behind (actually in Turkey):
Republic Square:
Kiev, Lavra:
Maidan:
It was a red-eye flight, with "de la muerte" departure time. I wasn't able to get any service and I slept instead, which turns out not to be not that bad.
Thanks to the departure time, Istanbul airport was really empty so quite fluid.
Immigration at CDG was also quite fast thanks to Parafe.
For the price I paid (65 euros), there is really nothing to complain about.
Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 29 avis concernant 4 compagnies sur la ligne Istanbul (ISL) → Paris (CDG).
La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Turkish Airlines avec 8.1/10.
La durée moyenne des vols est de 3 heures et 46 minutes.
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10 Comments
I hope you enjoyed your trip , about tbilisi , two days are enough
Thanks a lot for the comment!
I really enjoyed Caucasus region and I hope returning back there one day!
Yes the price was really good but I cannot find this price anymore with AirFrance for Istanbul...
I think this might be the reason that KLM has a much better connection towards China with better integrated connections with Chinese carriers. On top of that China Southern of course left Skyteam which would eventually reduce traffic too.
@Sidenote: It might be better to change your airport code above (IST > CDG) to (ISX > CDG) as ISX is the new code for the older airport. You basically rate the new airport right now with pictures of the old terminal.
Cheers,
Thanks a lot for the comment!
Actually the flight is at 4PM...
I took the Air France flight for Guangzhou in January, it was quite full and maybe CZ will add some more connections for Paris.
Even though the schedule of JN ( now AF ) to Istanbul is horrible at the moment ( still it's the same ), the airport is usually empty at that time which would allow you to arrive 45 mins before departure time if you don't have checked baggage. ( even at the new airport ). Also the reason that AF preferred to have a late night flight from CDG and an early morning flight from IST is that they have the AtlasGlobal codeshare flight during the day and the this flight in the morning that would allow the maximum number of destinations that could be reached by a connection in CDG.
Also nice tourism bonuses for all the cities that you have visited.
Thanks once again and hope to see you in another report.
Thanks a lot for your comment.
I still remember the time I first went to Istanbul with AF in 2013, with a departure from Paris at noon and the return flight at the end of the afternoon... Now there is just one AF red eye with one AtlasGlobal in code share with AF and all others being Turkish and Pegasus from Orly. Indeed there were a lot of PAX in transit at Paris. The airport was really empty at that time ;-D
Btw I really look forward to experience the new airport in Istanbul and also the renowned company TK that I have never tried so far. Maybe one day haha...
Between the lack of service and the departure time this Joon flight really sucked. Glad this "brand" is soon disappearing.
Nice bonus though :-)
Thanks a lot for the comment.
Given the departure time, it is actually it is better not having any service because fortunately I managed to sleep...
I never really understood the Joon brand....supposedly appealing to millenials, but operating to destinations that don't necessarily scream millenial. It just never made any sense...and the name is silly...you almost had to speak "franglais" to understand that it's "Jeune" pronounced with an English accent...yeah, I don't get it, haha. Probably for the best that Joon will be integrated back into mainline AF and stop creating so much brand confusion.
Merci encore d'avoir fait l'effort de poster ce FR en anglais! Bienvenue de notre coté ?
Thanks a lot for the comment.
I didn't know that Joon meant "Jeune" pronounced à l'anglaise... Really difficult to find that out, especially as an Asian I immediately thought about a Korean family name... But I do like Transavia, even though some time ticket prices may get quite high!
The departure time is super early, or super late it depends how you spend the evening, I had to leave my hotel near Ataturk at 2AM, that should be earlier if I came from city center...
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