Review of Air France flight from Paris to San Francisco in Economy

A visual of this entire journey from Barcelona to San Francisco via Paris:
Total distance flown will be 6,116 mi / 9,843 km

introduction

Welcome to another trip report!
This report will be continuation of my journey to San Francisco from CDG where my journey started initially in Barcelona (you can check it out here). This was an exciting trip and much awaited trip as it was be my first time flying long-haul on AF onboard their B777-300ER's. Today's flight starts off me connecting here in CDG where I had about 1h and 45m connection time which in retrospect was not a good idea as I learned the hard way ?. If I can give anyone advice if you have a connection here in CDG is to give yourself a solid 2 to 2.5h in between your flights to give yourself a comfortable journey and not have to run and stress about changing terminals, especially if your connecting to an onward international flight like I was. 

connecting through CDG

After disembarking my flight, I followed the crowd and went looking for a flight information board.

After finding the departures board I looked for my flight which will be departing out of gate M47. 

Here's where the chaos happened. We had to queue for a bus to switch terminals which took a good 30 minutes. Afterwards we had to queue again for another 25 minutes or so to get through immigration and get an exit stamp before reaching our gate. All in all it took a good 1h and 10 minutes and that's with me speed walking through the place ?.

I did at least enjoy the ramp views when taking the bus.

AF 777-200LR

DL A330-300

After a 10 minute ride we made it to our departure terminal.

I clearly underestimated CDG's size and connection time needed when transiting here. At least I know for next time.

plane spotting

I still had a few minutes before boarding so I decided to do a bit of plane spotting.
Here's a DL A330-300 departing for DTW.

Another DL A330-300 arriving from New York JFK.

And here's my bird that will take me across the pond to SFO today. Interesting thing happened to me right after taking this pic of my aircraft. I was approached by an AF agent, and she told me to immediately erase my picture of the aircraft as it was illegal. After politely asking why she told me 'taking pictures of aircraft will give ideas terrorists and that's why it's illegal'. She didn't just tell me to stop taking pictures, oh no, she wanted to visually see me erase my photos. I obviously retrieved my fotos later from my deleted folder (thank god). But this was an absolute strange experience that I've never encountered before or heard of in all my travels. Has this happened to anyone else especially in CDG? I didn't want to argue with her as I didn't want to be arrested and be left in Paris ?.

Some information about my plane:
Flight number: AF 84
Aircraft: Boeing B777-328(ER)
Registration: F-GSQH
Delivered: January 14, 2005
Age: 18 years

boarding

Boarding began on time and large queue began forming with AF staff asking the normal security questions one by one  before boarding the flight.

A friendly FA greeted me at the door, looked at my boarding pass and guided me to cross the galley to the next aisle over. 
Here's the very elegant business class cabin.

Followed by premium economy.

And lastly economy class. 

my seat 44l

My seat for the next 11 hours. 

A view of the cabin before the main heard of people take their seats. 

At each seat there was a pillow, blanket and a headset provided. 

A good size PTV which I was excited to use and explore the entertainment options later during the flight.

The only slight disappointment was the legroom which feels a bit tight but not uncomfortable by any means. According to aerolopa these seats offer 31" pitch and 17.2" width. 

Though the cabin design is sleek and modern, I'm not a huge fan of the tight 3-4-3 abreast configuration here in economy class. Which added to the tightness and less personal space.   

The view from my window with the cargo door still open.

Important to note that each seat offers individual usb port and 2 universal power ports per 3 seats.

Boarding was complete and to my luck I had the middle seat vacant which was great as this will make my flight more comfortable. Todays flight loads looked at around 85%.

pushback

We pushed back 10 minutes behind schedule and shortly after the safety demonstration video began playing.

DL A330-900Neo bound for SLC.

EVA Air B777-300ER departing shortly for TPE.

takeoff

Lining up on the runway for takeoff.

Until next time Paris!

We soon broke through the dense layer of clouds over France.

Crossing the English Channel.

Now flying over the coastal town of Dover.

tray table/amenity kit

The tray table was a standard size and extendable.

Shortly after takeoff the FA's passed out these 'covid' amenity kits. Which included a mask and wipes.

Here's also a look at the headsets provided. They weren't the best of quality, my personal favorite are the ones Delta provides.

inflight lunch service

The lunch service started about an hour into flight while flying over northern Ireland.

Choices were pasta or chicken, I went with the pasta. The meal tray also included a side of cous cous salad, bread roll (not warmed), cheese with crackers, bottle of water and lastly a chocolate brownie of sorts as dessert. And the drink cart quickly followed next which I went for a red wine. 

The pasta dish was very good and cooked perfectly.

The dessert, though small, was very delicious.

The meal overall was very delicious!

Shortly after the trays were collected, the FA's came by once again with the drink cart and I went for a coffee.

Approaching over Greenland, unfortunately we couldn't see much due to the cloud cover.

For most of the flight the cabin was kept dark for other passengers to get some sleep. 

inflight entertainment

AF has an extensive amount of movies and tv shows to choose from. My favorite part was of course the interactive map which I kept on my screen for most of the flight. 

the loo

About 6 hours into flight I decided to take a stretch and checkout the loo. It was what you'd expect but it was surprisingly clean went I went in.

On my way out of the loo I passed by the galley to check out what snacks they had available. I found the crew congregated there chatting away and they seemed to be a little bothered when I went 'in their space' to get a snack from a box there.   

mid-flight snack

Although there wasn't an official mid-flight service performed by the crew, I still went to the galley and helped myself to what they had to offer. There were sandwiches, yogurts, cheese and crackers. I went for a yogurt and a sandwich as my mid-flight snack. 

The yogurt was fine but the sandwich was very underwhelming and had almost no filling and mostly bread. 

Flying over northern Canada.

I was sitting so far aft that I was able to see the contrails which were very cool.

pre-arrival service

About 2 hours before arrival the pre-arrival service commenced. AF has a unique looking 'goodie bag' containing all kinds of snacks along with a warm sandwich.

A warmed up sandwich. 

Here are the contents in the bag, excluding the warm sandwich. 

This sandwich (although warmed) also lacked filling and was not enjoyable.

Minutes later the FA's came by with the drinks cart, I went for a coke.

Flying over Boise, Idaho.

Mt. Shasta, elevation: 14,179ft / 4,332m

initial descent/landing

Welcome to San Francisco!

Spotted a rare AS 737-900 without winglets.

Delta B757-200 departing for Boston.

Several AA jets.

arrival at gate

Despite leaving Paris 30 minutes late, we arrived 35 minutes ahead of schedule. 

A look at the lavish Business class cabin.

This concludes the journey and trip report. Thanks for reading!