Review of Air France flight from Paris to Lyon in Economy

Hello all,

As I was finishing my shift the previous day in Paris Le Bourget, Operations informed me that I was released from my two weeks duty and that I would be positioning home the following day and asked whether I had any suggested flight. My preferred option was of course to book me on one of those many ''Paris-Amsterdam'' flights, however both Air France & KLM were asking approximately 600 EUR or more for those rides and I knew from the beginning that operations would buy them only if it was really a necessity (last resort). The other option was to take a ride on one of the many TGV / Eurostar rides to Amsterdam with the cheapest fare being 220 EUR, but this option was really one of the least favourite ones as I am not particularly lucky with international train rides in my life and I feared last minute cancellations of trains due to an ongoing strike in the Netherlands.

To my surprise I found two good alternatives with short stopover times via either Lyon or Nantes for a total of 175 EUR with Air France / KLM. Those fares did not show up on their website, however were easily booked via Booking.com. I gave them this suggestion and a few minutes later I received my itinerary via Lyon on my mail and the itinerary is as followed.

As I was staying in the Campanile Le Bourget, I ordered an Uber around 6.15 AM to position myself and this brought me in approximately 25 minutes to Paris Charles de Gaulle for about 35 EUR dropping us off in front of the entry to security.

As of yet the terminal wasn't really crowded and given that I travelled with luggage that was allowed as carry-on, I decided to enter security. Staff wasn't particularly friendly here and eventually was turned away by one of the chaps as my luggage was weighing 1 kg over the allowed weight and told me to go to counter four. It wasn't really an issue to me as I had checked luggage included to my ticket, but what stood out most to me is that some people were allowed to remove their laptop or tablet out of their bag to lower the weight, while some others were not. Also by holding it in your hands, the carry-on is still above the maximum weight, isn't it?

Counter four, which is on the left, was used for those who were turned away by security. As I was instructed to go there, I decided to queue over there with just a few passengers waiting. What annoyed me the most is that one of the four counters was actually helping people, while the others seemed to be idling. Pushing my luck, I decided to go to one of those idle counters to check in my luggage only to be told to go back to line and a minute later being told to go to the lady behind the Sapphire counter.

The ground attendant staffing the Sapphire counter was so far the only one who was actually friendly and helpful. She also informed me that the luggage will continue to Amsterdam without any need to be picked up in Lyon.

Eventually made my way to security once again where I was now allowed to bypass the carry-on inspection. Given that my luggage has quite a lot of electronic in it for work and some batteries, my carry-on as usual was picked out for some additional screening. The security agent who went through my bag did not say a single word during my search other than just pulling out all electronics and dumping it on a tray. She gave me the tray and I kind of needed a few minutes to sort my stuff in my bag again.

So far Charles de Gaulle didn't give me the best impression as of yet.

Eventually passing all the mandatory checks, I proceeded to the gate for my flight. I must say that the Pier does look impressive when the sky is dark.

I grabbed myself a coffee and a sandwich before finding a seat near the gate for today's departure. Gate F53 it would be. (TV on the left shows Bordeaux, but that was for Gate F52).

Boarding was called about 10 minutes past our scheduled boarding call and went quite smooth with respect to the zone you were in.

The airport, however, does not really provide you with the best apron views, but our aircraft today was F-GTAQ. F-GTAQ is a 16.8 year old Airbus A321 being newly delivered to Air France in February 2008 and this specific bird is named after the French city ''Clermond-Ferrand'' and can carry up to 212 passengers in a EURO J/Y Configuration.

A neighbouring Airbus A321 that was going to depart to Bordeaux a bit later.

Upon embarking the aircraft, I was greeted by two flight attendants and decided to quickly make it to my seat for today's flight. I met two other flight attendants on my way, but it seems that nobody was in the mood to work as none of them did not smile at any point throughout the flight, though they weren't rude either.

The seat itself was spacious enough for a flight of an hour and was clean in general, however in the bottom of the photo just above the literature pocket, you can clearly see that someone had attached some used chewing gum to the seat. 

The seat however is equipped with usb ports in case you needed to charge any of your device.

And the view of my seat isn't too shabby.

View of the cabin when boarding was completed.

Pushback was about six minutes past our scheduled departure time.

Soon after we were rolling down runway 26R for our departure to Lyon.

After a short climb-out through clouds, we were greeted by this beautiful weather and sunrise.

As we were climbing out of Paris and some of the flight attendants jumped out of their chair to prepare us some snack, I decided to continue with the review and saw that the aircraft is equipped with individual air vents, a reading light and a push to call button. For a 16.8 year old bird, the aircraft did look well-maintained with minor signs of it's age.

The table was clean and passed it's test.

The literature in my seat pocket contained only of a Safety Card for the correct type of aircraft. I believe a sick / trash bag will be present with most seats too as all neighbouring seats but mine had them.

Moments later the flight attendants came by and asked for my choice of drink. The options on today's flight were Coffee, tea, water or Orange juice. I opted for the orange juice and it came with a madeleine, which is some kind of buttery cake.

The aircraft was equiped with Wifi and my phone instantly made connection to the router.

Only to be met with an error message saying that this service was temporarily unavailable. No further explanation given and it did not disappear throughout the entire flight.

15 minutes later the flight attendants came by to clean the cabin as we were already descending into Lyon.

About 10 minutes to landing and shortly before the fasten seatbelts sign was switched on, an announcement was made by flight attendants that due to the foggy weather in Lyon, the captain decided that all electronic devices were to be switched off completely including those who were in flight mode. 

Touchdown on Runway 35R about five minutes ahead of schedule.

About four minutes later, we pulled into stand next to this A321 of Turkish and meant that we arrived one minutes ahead of our scheduled arrival time.

Disembarkation followed soon after and it finally gave me a chance to spot the aircraft that brought us over from Paris.

The next flight will continue from here and thanks for reading!