Review of Air France Hop flight Lyon → Rome in Economy

get your roman sandals, toga and let's go!

I one of these people that just love Italy and this time I am going to take you to… Roma!

 As we have been flying more often Air France and KLM, we trend to choose a SKyteam alliance over others, especially over low-cost airlines as the difference sometimes is minimum.

 Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 132
Status earned: 5 XP 

 When you fly 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.

 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.

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.

at lyon saint exupery airport

We arrived in Lyon airport about 1 hour before the flight with the Rhône Express tramway.

You arrived at the famous bird shape TGV station and followed by a corridor to reach the terminals 1A and 2.

 The airport, named after the famous aviation pioneer Antoine de Saint-Exupery, is split into two terminal, Terminal 1 featuring Terminal 1A and 1B and Terminal 2, mostly used by AIr France and subsidary Hop.

As a skyteam elite member I did use the priority lane which was almost empty for once :) 

Air France has been offering free press for a very long time now,

and also in english which is a great plus.

As we were early, I went for a quick spotting visit.

From the Embraer jets 

and Bombardier jets

 to our bird in gate U08. The Hop terminal looks like a fork and the south branch "U" seems to be dedicated mostly to international flights, where the branch just for domestic flights. 

The plane was one hour late due to the ATC strikes but the we were informed both via the App and the ground personel.

 Aircraft: Embraer E170SU
Registration: F-HBXH
Engines: 2x CFM34
Age: 9 Years
Layout: Y76
Observation: Been owned by Regional and Hop except for a 2 year period when it was owned by Air Côte d'Ivoire.

 The AvGEEK bit
This unit is one of the 15 E170s of Air France Hop. Like all of these E170s; they were launched by former Regional airline (its serial number is 32).
HOP! Air france is the subsidiary of Air france for its domestic routes and neighbouring european cities. It was founded in 2013 as a merge of 3 regional airlines operating for Air France : Britair, Regional and Airlinair. These three airlines were struggling to have a good efficiency (just 60% of the seats in average were sold) and so Air France decided to group them under a single brand. Airlinair used to be an all ATR airline, Regional an all Embraer (145 and 170/190) and Britair an all Bombardier airline (CRJ 200, CRJ 700 and CRJ 1000).

 We were queuing on the Priority lanes for boarding.

on board the E170

The crew assigned to the cabin today was very professional. 

Captain made the usual pre-flight annouce for this flight
We started push back soon after, the crew made the safety briefing in French, English and also Italian, which was impressive.

We started taxiing next to Terminals 2 before reaching the runway 18L.

The cabin was super new and shiny with leather seats, reclining and adjustable head rests and the pitch seemed generous.

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!

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 and the seat belt signal being switched off.

I chose coffee and the cake as complimentary drinks. As we took off late and over lunch, I was a bit hungry and when asked the crew smiled and gave us 3 extra pieces of cake!

We approached Roma Fiumicino very shortly after towards and made our way to the final on the runway 16L and the crew gave us sweets to prepare our hears for the landing.

at roma fiumicino leonardo da vinci airport

The landing, although in a very fogy condition was smooth, so congrats to the captain! We arrived with just 40 min delay, which wasn't too bad.

Taxiing was fairly short, and the plane arrived at a parking stand where we waited for a bus to take us to the terminal building.

I leave you with the major monument of the eternal city..