Review of Air France Hop flight from Bordeaux to Lyon in Economy

from saint emilion to saint joseph!

As part of my job, I have been travelling to Bordeaux a lot of times in the past year, up to a weekly basis at some point. This was the first time I experienced a "regular" flying experience, where even some crew member might recognise and greet me!

Fortunately, my job let us choose the airline we want to fly with, and so as a Flying blue frequent flyer I did not choose the orange plane over Air France..

I was very lucky to be on business trip to Bordeaux, this is such a beautiful city

Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 704
Status earned: 2 XP 

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.

As all of the Air France Hop flights; you can't choose your seat at booking, regardless of your Skyteam membership status. I am still not sure why the E190/170 and CRJ700/1000 fleet is the exception…
However you can during check-in, which I did, based on the cabin map provided:

at bordeaux merignac airport

The airport is rather well designed, and not huge, I guess righlty proportionated to the town of Bordeaux. One of the very cool features is the vines planted in front of the airport…

Unlike my previous travels, the - almost- dedicated terminal to Air France, Terminal B, has been closed and all flights transferred to the older Terminal A. And again, I am not sure why but all the duty free were closed, and especially at this Canelés place, where I liked to treat myself!

The gate of our plane was 53, part of this extension of terminal A where typically Air France Hop flights would operate before Covid Crisis.

on board the e190

We were called to board on time; with the Skypriority respected, premium passengers were called first; however some premium passengers still feel they are the only one to bear the gold tag, and generously jump the queue.

Aircraft: Embraer E190STD
Registration: F-HBLM
Engines: 2x CFM34
Age: 2 Years
Layout: Y100
Observation: With the new Air France Hop livery!

While we were awaiting the others to board, I couldn't help noticing the plane on our left, I became less and less familiar with this livery as Ryan doesn't fly to Lyon… 

We started taxiing shortly after and took off on time. 

The cruise was rather uneventful, and my apologises I keep forgetting to take a picture of the catering offered by Air France. This was a bit sad as they still haven't resumed the free snack to economy class, but just to Business ticket owners.

at lyon saint exupery airport

We landed on runway 35R a good 15 min ahead of schedule.

And unusually we parked on gate Q06 that is normally used by A320 family aircrafts, usually the Air France Hop fleet parks on the Hop hub dedicated extension of the Terminal 2.