Review of Air France flight Warsaw → Paris in Economy

Hello and welcome on board this report introducing the first leg of my return trip from Warsaw, giving me the opportunity to introduce you the Air France A220 on european routes as well.

introduction

For my second attendance to the Flight-report GOLD diner, direction Warsaw! That's pretty good has I've never been in Poland.

To get there from Toulouse is not the easiest thing. No direct flights between Toulouse and Poland this summer (we had to wait for the opening of Krakow this winter by Ryanair). There was a time when Ryanair offered direct flights to Modlin (Translation of Stansted/Bergamo or Beauvais in Polish) but this link was closed long before the arrival of the Covid.

It will therefore be a flight with a mandatory stopover, which forces me to take a day off, 3 solutions are approximately in the same price range, Lufthansa with a mandatory night at MUC on the return and a TLS-FRA-WAW-MUC-TLS routing could be fun but service is really poor on economy. KLM with a one-night stopover at AMS and a very late return on Sunday.

And my choice, with AF correct departure times even if the return is a little early on Sunday and the prices a bit more expensive. In the end I would even pay a little less thanks to my AF "Weekend" card bought on sale (25€) it's really a bargain when you fly in Europe / domestic and you are nobody at Flyingblue FF program. The icing on the cake, my av-geek side will be satisfied with 2 scheduled flights aboard the new Airbus A220-300, an aircraft that I had never take since it entered into service.

Which gives us the following routing:

We cannot really say that the flight offer from the capital of Poland is plethoric to the capital of France indeed "only" 4 players sharing the market on the main gateway (CDG) these are unsurprisingly the majors AF (up to 3 daily flights) and LO (up to 3 daily flights as well) which dominate the market. On the other airport side, Wizz operates a daily flight to Orly and Ryanair operates a daily flight as well between Modlin and Beauvais.

There is good amount of reports on this line all covering Air France flights, but it will be the first report on board the Airbus A220 and only the second report on board Air France A220 available on the english couterpart of the website. 

Mid day departure from WAW

It is around 9:15 a.m. when I leave my "ibis style" hotel located near the impressive tower of the Palace of Discovery in what could be called the "new Warsaw" I reach by foot, in very gray weather accompanied by some small rain showers, the Ochota train station where the S2 trains passes, a kind of local S bahn.
The train is perfectly on time even if it is not easy to get information once in the station, the Warsaw urban transport site is very well design (you can even buy tickets online) moreover everything is fortunately perfectly indicated on Google maps.

Count a little over 20 minutes to reach the airport and the ticket only costs 4.40pln or about 1€! In addition, the train is large with many seats available and few people this Sunday morning. Only small weakness the frequencies are greater than half an hour in off-peak hours.

Short walk of about 5 min and climb of 2 floors to reach the departures area.

Departure area are separated into 2 halls, the first named A is used by BA and Wizz this morning.

For my flight it will be in zone C in the other hall, having bought a bottle of local alcoholic beverage (aka Vodka) it is in the hold that my cabin suitcase will travel, the checked baggage is included in my ticket tahnks to the AF weekend card .

I would wait a few minutes, the counters of AF / KLM only opening at H-2h and for KLM flight H-1h45. Organization not terrible, agents not really friendly and rude passengers in short not a great memory but my luggage will be checked in relatively short time.

Security will be crossed in 12 minutes, it would probably be faster if the organization were better… stupid detail, but I spent almost 2 minutes trying to get the attention of the agents to ask if they can send back the baskets because there were simply no more available to put my belongings before Xray checks .
At the exit we get in front this Duty-free shop with optional crossing.

 But also the flight indication display monopolized by the local giants LOT and Wizz air.

Warsaw airport is quite nice airside, there are gates on either side of a large pier.

 In the middle of the pier, you can find shops and restaurants with a bit of everything, whether local or international brands.

I find there some flight-reporters that have attend at the diner the night before and who are already waiting in front of the doors dedicated to AF and KLM flights, we will spend a good half hour chatting, travel, aviation and of course FR!

Good point for avgeeks like me these large windows, clean, with seats right in front, directly overlooking the tarmac and an pretty good view of aircraft movements, whether during takeoff, landing or taxiing. So spotting session, with this Aegean Airbus A321 for Athens.

There are also much smaller modules flying in Warsaw, such as LOT's now defunct Dash-8s, many of which were still wearing Eurolot colors despite having disappeared 7 years earlier. Or as is the case for this plane coming from a special livery. He was taxiing for a takeoff to Rzeszow.

Or this bird in LOT full color arriving from Krakow.

That only let Embraer Erj for domestic and regional flights. It must be said that the Polish airline as all the collection of Ejet E1 in service. And as you will be able to see there are all sizes and all colors! Like this little Erj 170 leaving for Budapest

Or this one for Kosice

On the Erj190 side, we have this bird with a very discreet livery (more Eurowhite than that, it's not possible) which arrives from Prague.

And like in the movies the uncut version with this Erj195 arriving from Istanbul.

A colored variant of the Erj 195 with this plane wearing an advertising livery for a brand of chocolate bars which seems to me to be the competitor of the famous Prince Polo that was previously distributed on board LOT flights ! This machine leaving it in the direction of Sofia.

For longer flights or destination requiring more capacity LOT also has a handful of Boeing 737max-8 with this machine leaving for Madrid.

On the long-haul side, the fleet is much simpler with only the Boeing 787, a few -8s and a majority of -9s like this flight arriving from Miami.

KLM Boeing 737-800 to AMS

Followed a few moments later by our Airbus A220 of the day coming  from CDG, it is on time but bad surprise it is the same aircraft as on my TLS-CDG 2 days earlier. So second time on board F-HZUG an A220-300 delivered new last February and called Provins.

Our elegant bird comes to the parking position itself in front of our door quickly, the engines are stopped and the bridge is connected.

Meanwhile, aircraft movements are not slowing down, Wizz Air is operating its new 248-seats Airbus A321neoNX (yes, you read that right) to the sunny island of Tenerife. 5h30 flight in there could probably be compared to torture acts.

Long haul aircraft are still arriving like B787-9 in the 100% Polish livery of LOT which arrives from a transatlantic from Toronto.

Emirates arriving from its Dubai mega-HUB in triple-7.

Last spotting picture (finally! would probably say certain) with a last tribute to the LOT Q400 here operating a flight to Vilnius. Airlines operating the last of the Canadian turboprops are rapidly shrinking in Europe with the collapse of Flybe few days ago that only leave Luxair, Sata, Croatian and Winderoe.

Well even if the flight is announced full the queue is greatly reduced and it would be time to get on board, I will met some other flight-report contributors getting back to Paris ont that same flight

Boarding pass threw AF app

The staff at the door will be more friendly than at check-in and here I am in the jetbridge where it's jammed like on the ring road at rush hour.

At least we've got a descent view on the aircraft

on board Air France A220

Then it's boarding with a smiling and friendly crew, we find the nice cabin of this AF A220 which is perhaps,  among the best in Europe.

I join my seat in row 27 on the three-seater side this time so as not to be bothered by the sun for the photos. For your information, row 27 does not have the best windows configuration.
I would be joined by a French couple among the last passengers who boarded. Couple who will make a bit of a mess, the young lady thinking she has lost her phone in the terminal… before realizing, after the crew had started to contact the ground staff, that the phone was in her handbag…

Latest generation ceiling panel

The pitch is quite good although apparently a bit narrower than on the A320s. There is a lot of equipments on the back of the seat such as a coat hook, a USB socket (which works) but also a small novelty at AF, a support for a tablet or smartphone.

The windows are certainly not very well aligned with my seat but I can see aircraft taxiing behind us like this LOT Erj175 arriving from Gdansk which also allows me to complete the family of Ejets operated by the Polish airline. Fun fact, LOT was the launching customer for this version of the Erj.

We are almost pushed-back on time with a good view on the remote ramp which accommodate the small modules of LOT. We find there to vary the colors, this Erj170 in the Star Alliance livery.

 It starts to rain a few minutes before entering the runway which will complicate the shooting. After a short stop at the holding point, we are authorized to take off heading east!

Complete view of the Frédéric Chopin airport facilities

Further away, stands the towers of the megalopolis that has become Warsaw on last decades.

Our climb takes place above the western suburbs of Warsaw without any real change of course since our departure.

The climb will continue on grey clouds where the blue of the decorated wingtip with the iconic "shrimp", historical symbol of Air France, looks gorgeous

Fortunately, once we have crossed the cloud layer above Poland, a huge blue sky awaits us. Indeed up there it's always sunny ! (one of the other magic of the plane).

Most of the flight will take place above an overcast cloud cover which will tend to be broken near the German border.

Unfortunately, these are huge scars of the earth that the clouds let glimpse. We are south of Cottbus and what we see are old open air coal mines now shuted down. But do not think that coal mining is over in Germany, at the other end of the country a few tens of kilometers from Düsseldorf you can find Hambach mine, it is also known to be one of the main sources of CO2 emission in European. 

We continue our journey above the Land of Saxony. Small detail the wifi will strangely not work on my phone during this flight (although it worked perfectly 2 days earlier on the same plane) I could connect but not select the message pass or access the app functionalities.

The service will take place in the middle of the flight, when the trolley arrives at my level there is no longer a choice, it will be the vegetarian option for the whole rear of the cabin.
Extra sandwiches will be distributed to passengers who wish a second one. Honestly, I really liked this little snack. Side drink I could not resist the attraction of tomato juice while asking for an extra glass of water offered with a smile.

The flight continues quietly in the silence of our A220, the flight is once again almost full I would say a little 90% of load factor

The route of the day, rather standard, which will take us across Germany from East to West (the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg too but it's easier ^^). For cruising altitude it will be 36,000ft during a large part of the trip.

Not many landscapes seen from the air but it is already time to descend! The flaps are gradually extended as we get closer to the ground. Some slight turbulence will be felt but nothing very impressive.

 This made me think that I still haven't presented the contents of the seat-pocket, it will be done quickly because it only contains the regulatory safety instructions.

We cross a very thick layer of clouds we see that the ceiling is low and the weather promises to be wet.

We are now on final for the South doublet, passing close to the small town of Juilly wedged between the 2 runway sets. You must love the airplane noise and jet fuel smell if you want to leave here !

It will be a landing on the 26L while on the parallel runway is lined up an American Airlines Boeing 787-8 which will wait for our landing before taking off to Philadelphia.

landing on Paris rain showers

Smooth touch on the Parisian tarmac rather soft braking as well but all control surface deployed!

As we are leaving the runway (by the taxiway ^^) we can see this Boeing 777-200ER of the Israeli airline El Al taxiing for a flight to Tel Aviv under the supervision of the tower.

 We begin our taxiing, no doubt we are on Air France land!

We are quickly parked at the end of the pier of T2 hall K, due to the fact that our aircraft next flight is scheduled to Manchester. During the disembarkation process I would take the photo of this Airbus A320 arriving from Casablanca.

It is already time for me to leave this pleasant cabin, the crew at the door will politely farewell me at the aircraft door.

Quick transit threw a glassed jet bridge. 

Last partial view on the aircraft as I descend from the jetbridge by an outside staircase and, coincidentally, the rain begins to fall heavily.

Another Air France A320 boarding to Sofia (Bulgaria)

 Short tour between the different terminals in a crowded bus, few photos possible because of the rain that sweeps the windows of our vehicle.

 We are dropped off on the ground floor of 2F but still in the transit area.

 I arrive in front of the huge FIDS which displays all the departing flights scheduled. For the moment my flight on time (spoiler that will not be the case).

I hope you've enjoyed these couple of report on board the new Air France A220-300 and I hope to see you soon for a new travel !