Review of Air France flight Paris → London in Economy

back home

Hello all, welcome back to the continuation of this flight to Madagascar capital, Antananarivo.

I was going there a few weeks and the plan was to volunteer at my friend's charity to build up a new school but also to enjoy whilst we are there and do some sightseeing. This trip, and especially volunteering was a wonderful experience.

The way out was stressful and on the way back I slept from the moment we taxied up until breakfast onboard, even sleeping through take off - so no pictures to report I am afraid. 

Below the routing initially planed, before the strike by AF staff, and the fact that I was rebooked on a BAW flight for the first leg. 

Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 176
Status earned: 5XP

I did check in 24 hours before the flight and managed to choose my seat and get my boarding pass.

AT PARIS CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT

I landed from my previous flight from TNR at 11.35 am, so we had just under 2 hours of connection; plently of time to rest amd have a meal.

We arrived at terminal 2E hall L, and we took the automatic train to 2E hall K, where usually the flights to London are leaving from.
Although I became familiar with this red carpet tunel building, I must say i quite like it. 

We saw our plane arriving..

onboard the a320

Aircraft: Airbus A320-211
Registration: F-GKXA
Engines: 2x CFM56
Age: 25 Years
Layout: C20 Y158
Observation: Was the first of the GKX series, that was assigned to European destinations and sometimes domestic to CDG. The aircraft, because of its age, was retired in 2017.

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

The crew assigned to the cabin today was again professional. 

The cabin was still fitted with these older seats, really similar to those you can find on the B777 COI i just came from, except there were no IFE. Although this seems like ages ago, these seats were way better than the recarro seats you can still find on the A318.. 

 Captain made the usual pre-flight annouce for this flight
We started push back soon after.

And take off!

Service was offered as usual, with a (hot) drink and a savoury or sweet snack..

 The Air France magasine is quite elaborate with 330 pages, a first section about world's statistics, travels, Air France fleet presentation and a presentation of films.

On the fleet presentation, as you can see these were the glorious days for the short and medium haul fleet - the planes were doing less rotations per day hence more planes, also there was no Transavia so the regional fleet was much larger. In the case of Hop, the benefit of having that many different types of aircraft is the flexibility for lower demand routes but the cost of maintenance is huge for such complexity. A quick comparison with the change with today's fleet
43 A319 nowadays 33
60 A320 nowadays 43
25 A321 nowadays 20
25 Avro RJ85 nowadays 0 - Cityjet was sold by Air France.
20 ERJ145 nowadays 0
16 ERJ170 nowadays 15
10 ERJ190 nowadays 13
4 CRJ200 nowadays 0
15 CRJ700 nowadays 10
13 CRJ1000 nowadays14
13 ATR42 nowadays 0
10 ATR72 nowadays 5


Interestingly, Air Corsica was counted as part of the Air France fleet…

Approach over cloudy london and on runway 27R

at london heathrow airport

We landed smoothly and arrived at Terminal 4, as usual where the fellow Skyteam members hub is.