Review of Air France Hop flight Mulhouse / Bâle → Paris in Economy

Hi dear English Readers,

Here with my trip to the Flight Report Meeting in NYC. Nothing exciting with the routing:

• MLH CDG E190 : here you are
• CDG JFK A380 : please wait
• JFK CDG B772 : please wait more
• CDG MLH E190 : won't be published as it is a copy paste of that report ;)

No overbooking, downgrading, extraordinary things in that report. If I translate it in English, it is for the sake of the database and to show our North-American readers how a domestic flight can look like in France.

This is my hometown airport, Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, as known as EuroAirport. It has a few particularity.

1. The airport has 3 IATA codes : BSL for Basel, MLH for Mulhouse, and EAP for EuroAirport
2. The airport is bi-national. Together with GVA, those are the two only airports with that status in the world.
3. The airport has a French side and a Swiss side

The EuroAirport is built on French soil, but as Basel has no suitable land in Switzerland to accomodate an airport, it has been decided that the French will provide the land and the Swiss will provide the infrastructure. This has been proved as very successful over the time. To access the Airport from Basel, there is a road from the city in Switzerland to the airport in France. The road is a customs free road, which leads to the Swiss side of the airport. For taxes purposes, an airline can either land in Basel or in Mulhouse, even if it is the same airport.

There are even Air France flights to CDG that leave from Basel and Mulhouse, to be marketed in France and in Switzerland, that gives funny flights to Paris Charles de Gaulle. For instance, the first flight in the morning leaves Mulhouse at 06:40 arrives at BSL at 06:41, leaves BSL at 06:42 and arrives CDG at 08:00.

The stop in BSL is only virtual, but if you book a MLH CDG flight, the flight won't be marketed as non-stop :)

Another funny thing is if you are looking for flights to Amsterdam with KLM. If you look on KLM.fr there is nothing from Mulhouse, France. But if you switch to KLM.ch you will have flights from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam. Taxes that are lower in Switzerland are behind that :)

Last but not least, if you work at EAP, you can be employed under Swiss law and salary or French law an salary. Which is very different. For instance, if you work at an Air France check in desk, you have 35H/work per week for a salary of EUR 1'500.- per month. If you work at a Swissport check in desk, you have 42H/ work per week but for a salary of EUR 3'000.- per month ;)

Enough about the airport now.

A bit of spotting with this B1900-D from Twin Jet, bound to Marseille with non standard colors, and this ATR72, HOP! to Orly:



A300 DHL, to BRU in the evening:



E135 HOP! to LYS:



A320 Air Berlin, ops by Belair:



737-800 TUI Fly:



ATR72 for ORY at push:



My plane that arrives with a good hour delay:



Shortly after shocks on, pax are unboarded, boarding of WCHR, UM's and Sky Priority. No surprise with this Embraer 190, no first class nor business seats:



Before ligning up we have to give way to this A319 EasyJet:



And take-off:



That's where I leave, my little village:



No caviar nor foie gras as snack that morning: (by the way, this is what you get daytime when flying domestic, sweet or savoury snacks and a drink)



Sea of clouds:



Landed in CDG with a mini spotting session, Emirates A380 and Tarom babybus A318:



The next leg, very soon!!