Review of Air France Hop flight Lyon → Bordeaux in Economy

from saint joseph to saint emilion

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..

Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 318
Status earned: 2 XP 
Air France doubling the XP status in 2020: 2 additional XPs

 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.  

I chose my seat 30 hours before departure, as all HOP flights, you can't choose your seats before this point.

at lyon - saint exupery airport

I arrived with a taxi as usual, and went through security really fast:
- during covid times there was barely anyone at the airport at 6pm during a weekday
- I was travelling light as usual, with just my cabin suitcase.

A good thing to know when you flight onboard the CRJs is that, even if you only have a cabin luggage, it will have to be dropped at the plane door and to be placed in the small hull under the cabin. 

I have been on so many flights from Lyon in one year and yet this lounge is still closed. From what I have collecting and consolidating, Air France doesn't want to re-open the lounge because there are all the other flights departing from the T2 gates when usually just Air France and friends do. So Air France does not want to grant access to people that have the gold status from another alliance.

So instead of enlarging a bit more privileges to a bit more people, they prefer not to cherish any passengers at all…
Love the logic. 

I arrived at the bit of the terminal dedicated to HOP, and as usual my flight was leaving from the U gates. 
It seems as if U are for domestic, S for international flights - where my previous flight to Rome was scheduled from. 

The funny moment when the crew opens the door of the CRJ parked to prepare the flight, just like when you open the door of your car!!

onboard the crj700

Aircraft: Mitsubitchi CRJ702
Registration: F-GRZO
Engines: 2x CFM34
Age: 13 Years
Layout: Y70
Observation: Entered service with Brit Air; the world's launch customer of the type.

We were called to board on time; with the Skypriority respected, premium passengers were called first.

I really like this door it has a feeling of boarding a private jet!

One of the benefit of boarding amongst the first is to have the cabin almost for yourself, so you can take pictures!

The pitch is ok, the tray tables are really old, seats still have an ashtray but they are old fashion - which means more comfortable!

Unfortunately for us, the flight was delayed of 45 minutes, apparently there was some problem with ATC departure slots.

So the next picture is definitely darker! 

We started taxiing shortly after and took off from runway 17R for once…

and take off!

Over terminal 1

Since the first lock down, Air France stopped printing its magazine, and so it is digitally that you can discover it:

You can really tell that the domestic network has shrunk by at least 50%…

At the time, there was still 11 CRJ700s in the fleet, nowadays there are just 6 remaining… It will soon become very rare to fly onboard one!

at bordeaux merignac airport

We arrived at the terminal B, where Air France operates; near to this flight from CDG (flying BOD-ORY was already part of history).

At landing we had a really nice announce from the captain thanking us for flying again with AF, and that it was thanks to our support that the airline was still operating.

In general the crew was really professional.