introduction
Hello everyone and welcome to a new FR. It's time to fly again from my hometown, Barcelona, to Bogotá. Today we will make a stopover in Paris Charles de Gaulle.
As I said on previous FR, there are many options to reach Colombia from Barcelona (or from all over Europe) and maybe the best one is Avianca as there's a direct flight. But, I was advised about their several cutdowns, so I decided to try a new airline for me: Air France. Even I flew with the airline in 2013 and 2016 to Paris, I've never tried it's long-haul product, and it was the best occasion to do so.
But, my first flight is to Paris Charles de Gaulle, so let's go!
As Usual, I took the train to reach the airport. L9 is quite close to my house and it's a 35 mins ride to the Terminal 1. As my flight was nearly at 10AM, I took the train shortly after 7:30.

at the airport
I made it to the airpot some good 1 hour and 45 minutes before my flight. I went to the check in counters to leave my bag and there was quite a long queque. As I saw in Warsaw a few months ago, Air France and KLM are sharing check in stands. All of the passengers today were flying to Paris and connections, I guess KLM is scheduled later in the morning
Anyway, as there were only 2 opened desks for economy class passengers, it took a long to made the check-in. Additionally, the self check-in machines weren't available because of the COVID certificates.

It took 30 minutes to leave my bag, but finally I made it. I said goodbye to my family, who came to the airport, and after the security control I went downstairs to the airside.

American Airlines triple seven was getting ready for it's flight back to the USA. JFK and Miami are covered by this airline.

Airside. Today it wasn't that cramped, but nothing compared with the 2020 flights I made from Barcelona.

And there's our airplane arriving from Paris. Surprisingly, it was an A320 and not an A321, which was announced at the webpage.

By the time there was a long queque. Full flight today, and many passengers in transit to the USA.

Af1149

When I made my online check-in, the webpage was indicating an a321, but a last minute change made the aircraft smaller. As a result, I was located at the penultimate row. The legroom was quite standard. Ok for an european flight, but not decent for a longer flight to the middle east or north of Africa, routes covered by Air France with this type of aircraft.

Waiting for pushback. The captain expected an hour and a half flight with some turbulence during our climb.

Pushback started just after 10AM


We will take off from 24L, heading to the east.

And there we go! Bye bye Barcelona, see you in december!
As you can see, there are many long haul aircrafts in this area. This part of the terminal 1 i very new and it's specially designed for these long flights, despite a few years ago that was the regional stand for smaller airplanes such as CRJ or ATR.

Shortly after take off, a left turn to the sea. The weather wasn't the best in Catalonia today, and some strong storms were announced at the afternoon.

Already over the sea.

And one last view from the catalan coastline, just before surfing the clouds.

We had some light bumps as expected, but soon enough, we were over the clouds and the sky was much better. A few storms were active in the back.


Just after reaching our cruising altitude, cabin crew started it's service. Air France is still offering a free snack on their european routes, which is nice. As I was listening to music, I didn't realize the crew started the service from the back, so I had to wait until they came back to take my snack. There was a "madeleine" and I also requested an orange juice. The service is good for a morning flight, but maybe the size of the snack is small. Even that, better than nothing and a nice sweet touch from AF.

Cruising over central France. The weather wasn't the best, but it slowly improved.

Soon enough, the cabin crew announced our descent towards Paris Charles de Gaulle. The weather was a little bit better so, as we had to circle for landing, we were able to see some views from Paris.


We had some bumps, as we were crossing the clouds.


Getting closer…

On short finals


And landed! Just over an hour and a half in the air. Welcome to Paris Roissy Charles de Gaulle.

A nice Triple Seven taking off just in front of us and a Luxair DASH arriving after us.

Heading to our parking position. Today the tower sent us to a remote stand. I guess is a busy hour in Terminal 2 E/F, which is used for european flights.

And parked!

We waited for some good 10 minutes before the doors were opened, and just the front one. Three buses came to pick us up. On board, I started a conversation with a woman who was travelling to Boston, but i managed to took one last picture to our airplane. Thanks for the ride!

And that's all, guys. Thanks for reading! I will soon publish my long flight to Bogotá, so stay tuned!