Review of Air France flight Venice → Paris in Business

There are ten direct flights on most days between Venice and Paris: six EasyJet flights to Orly and four Air France flights to CDG. There are also two Transavia flights a week to Orly. EasyJet is usually cheaper but the schedule of the 15.20 Air France flight suited my travel plans better. I booked this flight for 8500 Flying Blue miles plus 25 € in economy and upgraded to business for 79 € when checking in on-line. I consider the price for the upgrade good value as lounge access only costs 50 €.

I spent one night in Venice. The city is synonymous with crowds and overtourism but I had a very positive experience. I was there on a November weekday. Entire neighbourhoods were very quiet in the evening. I saw ten times more local Venetians during the day going about their day-to-day business than tourists. And the city is just beautiful.

I took a water bus to go from Venice to the airport. The cost was 16 € only. How many airports do you know that you can access by boat?

The airport has its own harbour.

You can walk from the harbour to the terminal. You have to go up first.

Then go this way. 

The terminal building. 

There's fast track security for business class passengers.

Venice is a busy airport. It had 9.3 million passengers in 2022. 

You then have to go through the duty free shop.

Follow the signs to the lounge.

The lounge is upstairs. 

The Marco Polo lounge is used by most airlines that offer lounge access including Air France. It's also a Priority Pass lounge and access can also be purchased.

The lounge is quite big. The main area:

It also has two smaller rooms on the two sides.

Semi-private seats near the entrance.

A small, cosy room on the left side.

A very nice greenhouse room at the other end.

Working area.

Viewing platform. 

There’s a good choice of food for lunch.

This was my lunch:

All drinks must be ordered from the staff. There's a real espresso machine. I had a soya capuccino.

I spent about two hours at the lounge eating, working and charging my phone.

I knew there was a delay so I took my time at the lounge but I had to hurry to the gate at 15.20 - I was almost the last to board.

This photo shows an Emirates plane taking off.

The plane was an A220-300, registration number F-HZUT, built in 2023 so almost brand new.

It has a Eurobusiness configuration of 2+3 economy seats but only 1+2 seats are sold in business class so you never have a neighbour. Row 1 has seats only on the right side (1D and 1F).

Seat 2A and 2C are the bulkhead seats on the left side.

Load on this flight was 5/8.

A nice pillow was waiting on the seat.

Water and a packed wet wipe were offered after boarding had been completed. 

There was some more delay on the ground.

Push-back was at 16.07 for a scheduled departure time of 15.20. Take-off was at 16.16.

A meal was served about 15 minutes later. I had some champagne with the meal.

There’s a small menu card in French and in English.

The crew member working in business class was friendly, polite and efficient.

The PA was barely understandable on this A220. The captain informed us at 17.15 that we had strong headwinds and we would land at 18.05 only.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. There’s no in-flight entertainment onboard the A220 so I spent my time reading and resting.

The cabin crew thanked all passengers in business class for flying Air France.

Mood lighting before landing. 

We landed at Paris CDG at 17.58 and were at the gate at 18.06 for a scheduled arrival time of 17.10.