Review of Twin Jet flight from Le Puy to Paris in Economy

Introduction

This story is the second segment of an express round trip for the sole purpose of flying in an unusual aircraft, at an unusual promotional rate. For more details, see the introduction to the FR for the outbound flight:

LPY at dawn: preparation of the aircraft

The first rays of the sun were just appearing on Le Puy airport, at the dawn of what was almost the summer solstice.

There was no rush for me, since I already had my BP, and this allowed me to see the exit of the aircraft from the hangar where it had been sheltered during the night.

The air stair was going to remain lowered position during the whole process, which is in principle prohibited

Almost front view: in this 1900D version, the fuselage has been significantly raised to allow passengers to move in the aisle without lowering the head.

The staff closed the hangar doors

And the plane was towed by the tractor driven in reverse

LPY, landside

In the meantime, day has dawned on the airport, of which you can see the entire facade in two pictures

A Mirage fighter could easily land and take off from LPY's 1,400-meter runway, but I doubt that it ever happened.

This was the very last day for taking advantage of this super low promotional fare, which had made this pure avgeek getaway a very affordable proposition.

I had checked in before leaving Paris and printed the boarding pass - Twin Jet does not provide a BP to QR code for smartphones. Seat 4C, not changeable? We will see that it did not matter, actually.

Esteban who had not had the opportunity to print his BP in advance was the first to check in.

Going through the security check was going to be unusually slow, because among the two gendarmes (plus two civilian employees), one of them was in training, and there was furthermore no X-ray machine: they did all the process by the book, searching each and every hand luggage of whatever size by hand. I later saw one of the gendarmes quizzing one of the employees on the control procedures to be applied.

Flight preparation

The aircraft was towed as close as possible to the walkway from the terminal

The regulations require that the plane be checked before the first flight of the day, and that includes all storage places, in order to ensure that nobody hid a suspicious object on board during the night.

There again, they go by the book

In LPY, the luggage handler is the copilot.

This was not the best day for a (very tiny) stowaway passenger to hide behind the main landing gear hatches.

Nothing to worry about: nobody left a suspicious chewing gum in the cabin and boarding can proceed.

Boarding

This will not surprise you: the three Flight Reporters were waiting in pole position, as close as possible to the door of the boarding lounge leading to the tarmac.
The massive left turboprop

Door and airstair shot

Detail review of the cabin of the Beechcraft 1900D

The cabin, empty…

And during boarding

The reflex of the ordinary passenger when given the choice, online or on the spot, is to get a seat as much in the front as possible. We did the reverse to have the best view, unobstructed by the wings, and since there were only 14 passengers minus a no-show, two empty rows separated us from the other passengers.

One of these empty seats was quickly used to store our hand luggage

The cleanliness of the floor is of course unchanged: decent, but not spotless.

You already know the seat if you've read the FR of the outbound flight: 44 cm wide between the armrests, which is rather comfortable, and 25 cm from the seat to the seat pocket, which is decent.

On the other hand, at little more than 30 cm in width, the aisle is really narrow.

On the window side, the armrest is integrated into the partition

With a ventilation nozzle whose orientation and opening can both be adjusted at will.

The window is a wide 37 cm x 20 cm ellipse.

This is the reference,in case you dream of an aircraft window for your bathroom

Safety card

Takeoff

The pilot taxied to the very end of Runway 33, although he did not need the extra hundred meters from the taxiway end.

Last glimpse of yellow streaked buildings in the business area

Take off

The village of Loudes, 500 meters from the axis of the runway

The weather was quite cloudy…

… which did not prevent passengers in the back rows from taking pictures as long as we were below the cloud cover.

One of the very few gaps through the clouds

The countryside seen during the start of the climb

It's over for the landscape photos: the cloud cover will be completely opaque. Are we going to not see the ground again until the end of the descent? (teaser)

At cruising altitude

The cabin became much brighter

The same, compensating for the color of the portholes

The evacuation diagram stuck on the bulkhead at the rear of the cabin

An emergency exit on the left wing

And two on the right

Self-serve galley

A small space at the back is a makeshift galley

We had our own private steward

That padded bag on top?

It only contained an oversized supply of surgical masks.

Two drawers contain madeleines: a whole bag

And a few isolated one, plus a brick of multifruit juice

Drinks consisted in water,

… soft drink cans

More water and two cans of Perrier

The same fate awaited coffee-lovers as on the way in: there was everything needed, except hot water. If Twin Jet provides neither for an evening flight, nor for a morning flight, what can this incomplete kit be used for? A friend made the hypothesis that it was there for chartered flights with a flight attendant.

Last, not least, one of the bottom drawers contained a makeshift rubbish bin

There was the same in the front of the cabin, in much more limited quantities. Opposite the staircase door, there was a seldom-used seat, to be used by a flight attendant only, if there was one.

There was catering on it

My modest selection

When you're seated in 9C, you don't even have to get up to take a missing paper towel from the galley!

The clouds above the ground, and the ground above the clouds

Is it possible to see the ground while cruising above a thick layer of cloud at 20,000 feet above sea level?

(the same landscape, corrected for the color of the windows)

Well yes, if the ground itself is above this layer of clouds!

Located nearly 200 km from our route, this is the unmistakable silhouette of Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in Western Europe at 15,777 feet.

I am less positive about this mountain further south, but a 3D navigation in Google Earth lets me think that the three summits are the Aiguilles d'Argentière.

Reclining the seatback

In the back of the aircraft that we literally privatized, Esteban discovered that the backrests can fold forward, like in the Soviet aircraft of yore.

The rear of the cabin was definitely ours

This allowed Esteban to change his seat into a lounge chair

A young passenger could not resist the pleasure of taking a souvenir shot.

Our very own in-flight service was over, we closed the galley … for the sole purpose of taking this picture.

Nothing separated the crew from the cabin

This provided a ivew of their memo

The air stair, just behind the cockpit

The right engine, in the dominant sepia color of the portholes

And in natural colors

We have started our descent to Paris

The best things have to come to an end: the "fasten your seat belts" pictogram lights up for the descent. We had fun in the back, but had no intention to break the basics of air travel safety.
(No, there was no oral announcement of the descent)

Long descent through the cloud cover

The landing gear was lowered before it we could see the terrain.

The last agricultural plot of Villeneuve Saint Georges, for how long?

Because Villeneuve Saint Georges is actually a nearly fully urban town

This town is mostly famous for its huge marshalling yard (on the right of the aircraft), less so for its commuter station, below alongside the Seine River

The Pierre Pouget stadium, in Ablon sur Seine, between the railway tracks coming from Paris-Austerlitz station and the Seine River.

Entering ORY's perimeter

Imminent touchdown

On the tarmac of ORY

In the distance, an aircraft which will no longer fly

Another Beechcraft 1900D, this one from Chalair

D-CDDD, a Cessna 560 XL

I deplaned last

This allowed me to take again a picture of the empty cabin.

Engine shot

More engine than door shot

More door than engine shot

The advantage of a remote parking spot was that the bus took time to leave, providing an opportunity to take pictures without reprimands from the notoriously photophobic ground staff.

F-HOXY, an Amelia E145, currently dedicated to the ORY-DCM line (i.e. Paris - Castres)

The PAXbus finally started: I took this picture of the front of our aircraft on the fly.

The A318 is the smallest original Airbus (the A220s were designed by Bombardier^^), but it is a giant compared to the Beechcraft 1900D.
(It is incidentally the largest aircraft which could be operated at MTOW at LPY.)

Arrival of an Air Corsica A320

AF A320

ORY - terminal 1

I have never detected any hint of a love of Paris for me, especially in its airports.

Toilets for passengers who cannot hold much more than an hour in a plane without a toilet.

No connection, no checked baggage either, therefore exit

This unforgettable round trip was definitely over

This time, the poor weather made me to take the Orlyval people mover to reach terminal 4 where my car was parked

… while my travel companions were taking it in the other direction to reach the RER-B line.

Arrival at Terminal 4, ex-Orly Sud

And back into the Greater Paris traffic jams that the inhabitants of Puy-en-Velais miss so much.

Thanks for reading me!