Review of Air France flight Marseille → Paris in Economy

Next part of this routing to and from Marseille

to begin with …

After a too short but really nice week-end in Provence, it is time to go back home. But things will not go exactly as planned :)

Already in the morning, we received a text from Air France informing us that the flight would now leave at 04:50P instead of 04:20P due to a stricke from the ATC employees in Marseille. Shouldn't be a problem since we still had a two hours layover in Paris

MARSEILLE PROVENCE

We took a cab that dropped us here:

Departures this way:

Advertisement for Sixt:

We checked in via the kiosks as we had no luggage.

My god-daugther was the one in charge :)

MRS was more or less empty that late Sunday:

cezanne lounge

We went to the lounge that was also empty.

Really empty :)

Snacking was ok:

Coffee machine:

A bit late for breakfast pastries :)

Bread:

Snacks:

And some sweet items:

We had our late afternoon lunch:

At 04:30 our flight was pushed to 05:30. Still enough time to catch our connecting flight. The only thing that wondered me is that our flight was the sole flight impacted by the stricke.

the flight

We left the lounge shortly before boarding:

No masks since this was still pre-COVID. At that period of time we have been told that masks were, anyway, useless…. things change.

Another Airbus:

Boarding started at 05:15:

Aircraft door:

The classic non reclinable seats:

The pitch is good:

Safety card:

The boarding is finished pretty quickly, the flight was only half full and most of the people are going to Reunion Island with the last flight of the day to RUN from ORY.

The captain then tooks the microphone to explain what is happening: the ATC people decided to strike and to block some flights, our flight being one of them. As the new shift takes over at 06:00PM, they decided not to handle our flight until the new shift starts. And the new shift will also decide on flights they will not handle until the next one starts.

That means that we now expect to leave at 06PM earliest. With one hour flight time, we are still ok to go.

And at 06PM the captain informs us that the evening shift "cannot handle our flight yet". People are starting to get angry and worried about their connection, we included.

The crew makes a water service in the meantime:

The thing that was the most frustrating is to see all other planes leaving on time. At 06:30 a take off for, maybe, 07PM is now expected. For RUN it is ok, but for us not. I give a quick phone call to the Platinum line that informs me that our flight is also delayed to 09PM. Then it should be ok in that case. The lady on the phone also blocks us 4 seats on the early next day morning flight, in case of.

At 07PM the ORY flight scheduled for 06:50 leaves but we stayed. A bit later we are informed that we would leave, maybe again, at 07:45PM. Meaning that our connecting flight is almost dead. But the good news is for the flight to RUN since they will wait for them.

Outside it is almost dark now:

And eventually, we left at 07:45PM. We hoped that our flight to Mulhouse would be delayed more, but didn't have too much hope.

The catering on board that flight:

We landed at 08:55 and a quick check informed me that our flight just left. The Platinum line left me a voice mail to inform that we are rebooked onto the next morning flight and that our vouchers for accommodations are waiting for us at any AF desk.

We received them in a matter of minutes, together with a meal voucher for dinner and breakfast and head to the Best Western Rungis (was just ok, for a night close to the airport but for nothing else!)