#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
Time for a quick visit to London!
Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 176
Status earned: 5XP
Air France app is quite comprehensive, you can easily navigate through options, travel tips, and of course your bookings and the service you will have on board.. Of course, like many others, the app offers you the possibility to check in online and get your boarding pass.
When you fly domestic with Air France, you are entitled to 1 bag in the cabin, adding my extra luggage allowance as I am a Skyteam elite member, we had an allowance 1 bag of 23kgs in the hull.
Prior to flying you can also download the Air France Play app that entitles you to download (and unlimited when you have the elite status) newspapers and magasines and I must say their section in English is good.
I landed in CDG at 5.30 pm on terminal 2F and my next flight was departing from terminal 2E hall K gate 31, boarding was meant to finish at 5.40… So I did my best run between these two terminals… in 9 min!
Which got me the congratulations of the crew and a bottle of water from the crew when arriving on board.
Aircraft: Airbus A320-214SL
Registration: F-HEPG
Engines: 2x CFM56
Age: 6 Years
Layout: C20 Y158
Observation: Second aircraft received with sharklets (offering 2 to 3% fuel burn save) and refurbished with a WiFi dome.
The AvGeek Bit
Facing a rapid saturation of Orly airports and Bourget airports, in the 1960s, the french government decided to build a brand new airport, in northeast of Paris. A third of its passengers are connecting, CDG is the European airport offering the most connections (25,000 possible connecting flights within 2 hours per week). It is the Hub for Air France (49% traffic), Joon, Easyjet france (8% traffic) Fedex Europe and the major European hub for Skyteam Alliance (Delta 2% Traffic). It is also the third global airport in terms of gates (317). The airport has the particularity to have been designed almost exclusively by world famous architect Paul Audreu, from first terminal to last extensions. It is named after French WWII leader, General and President De Gaulle.
➡ The airport was opened in 1974.
➡ There are 4 all parallel runways and the airport features the following buildings:
➡ Terminal 1, in an octopus shape, is the first to have been opened and now home to Star Alliance members and others like Qatar airways, and Norwegian.
➡ Terminal 2, built in length, is home to OneWorld and mostly to Skyteam and Air France. It is split into many concourses:
➡ 2A American Airlines, Cathay Pacific Air Tahiti Nui, Air Austral, Saudia, Air Algérie, Hainan Airlines, Air Canada, Air India
➡ 2B Exclusively Easyjet
➡ 2C British Airways, Emirates, Etihad, Oman Air, Saudia, Aeroflot Kenya Airways, Air Madagascar
➡ 2D Austrian Airlines, Ukraine International, Bulgaria air, Air Malta, Finnair and Czech Airlines
➡ 2F Air France, Joon, Air Europa, Alitalia and KLM for Schengen countries only (border free)
➡ 2E Building➡ K long haul Air France, Delta, Aeromexico, Japan Airlines
➡ 2E Building➡ L Air France, Joon, Delta, China Eastern, China Southern, Korean, Flybe, Tarom. Equipped for the A380
➡ 2E Building➡ M Air France, Vietnam Airlines, MEA,Air Mauritius. Equipped for the A380
➡ 2G exclusively home to Air France, Hop!
➡ Terminal 3 is home to low-cost and charter airlines Air Transat, Vueling, Air Arabia, TUI
Boarding was super fast and privileged in a way as I was the last one to board.
The crew assigned to the cabin today was again professional. I can really notice a difference in behaviour from a few years ago.
Soon after cabin lights were deemed as it was the evening.
Captain made the usual pre-flight annouce for this flight
We started push back soon after.
Crew performed safety briefing in the old fashion way but with smile. As advised by the crew, here is the safety card!
We started taxiing next to Terminals 2E hall K, Hall L Hall M and terminal 2G before reaching the edge of runway 26R.
The aircraft is still fairly new (6years old) and, the cabin was fully refurbished with smart and beyound leather seats, reclining and adjustable head rests. The seats were equipped with USB plugs too although not working as I was told they are under completey changing the system through their fleet. Shame
Even if it was a short flight (40min) the aircraft was equiped with wifi.
Just like the A320 family fleet, this aircraft wasn't equipped with IFE nor screens; a standard that seems to be the norm nowadays, where some Airlines like British Airways chose Live maps to be displayed on cabin screens.
The magasine offered was the very thick Air France magasine that a section of travel articles, and coporate news.
For a very long time Air France didn't name its aircraft and that just changed with the A350s!
On the fleet section there has been a few changes: Joon completely disapeared, so almost Hop the regional fleet that is now having the usual Air France livery with a small Hop red title below it.
Above all, the main change was the arrival of the A350 in the fleet!
The crew started very shortly after take off to serve us food, even before 10,000 feet.
I chose wine and sparkling water for the complimentary drinks and we had a chicken sandwich.
The whole flight was very bumpy to that point that the seat bealt signs weren't switched off at all and crew was serving hot beverages.
We approached London heathrow very shortly after towards and made our way to the final on the runway 8R
The landing was very very smooth despite the rain, turbulences and heavy crosswind, so congrats to the captain!
As usual, we arrived at Terminal 4, home of Skyteam members (except Delta that is hostd T3 with Virgin Atlantic), some former members like china southern and gulf airlines. Our arrival gate was, as well, very usually gate 15.
From stepping out of the plane, going through jetway, corridors and immagration to the baggage reclaim belt it took us 7 min…
However i had the bad surprise to receive a text from Air france on arrival telling me my luggage is missing… great.. I guess they didnt have time to load it between the two flights.
the staff at luggage reclaim was kind and he ensured my luggage will be delivered at my place.
In conclusion it wasn't the best experience with Air France.
My comment for the management. Below the changes undergoing at Air France:
-USB plugs being retrofited on some of the A320 fleet even though the whole fleet is not equipped yet - and so not working for the time being.
-Some A320 family units are still to be equipped with the smart and beyound cabin
-The huge majority of regional fleet have still the old Hop livery
-Not all of the B772 fleet has wifi
-Even less for the B773 fleet, some of the lastly received units and COI still don't have the Best and Beyound seats
-A340 are still displaying the old Joon livery
-6 units are still displaying the pre2009 livery change!
-the a330 new business seats are odd
-the first seven A350s will have an odd businesd seats, the following 31 to come will be featuring the standard best and beyound seats.
And so it seems that just the B787 fleet is up to the desired standards but again they have managed to create complexity by adding 3 seats to the cabin configuration to the last 2 units..
In one word to Air France's bosses: CONSISTENCY
If it would be like just a few planes with the old liveries like it happens usually (Lufthansa KLM ..) that would be fine that level of complexity is just... a big mess.
Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 134 avis concernant 2 compagnies sur la ligne Paris (CDG) → London (LHR).
La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Air France avec 7.5/10.
La durée moyenne des vols est de 1 heures et 16 minutes.
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