Review of Air France Hop flight from Lyon to Amsterdam 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 had an on-time arrival with my previous flight out of Paris, I had about two hours to kill before my next flight departing to Amsterdam with Hop!. Given that I have never flown to or out of Lyon, I decided to take a stroll through the airport to familiarize myself a bit with their lay-out and to kill my time. 

Given that I own a priority pass, I also checked whether I had any access to a lounge in Lyon, which I had not. I must say that France isn't really covered that well with Priority Pass at any airport.

After a quick stroll through the airport of approximately thirty minutes, I decided to find my way to our gate (Gate F05) for today's departure, which I already knew well ahead of time due to KLM's app providing me with those details as the airport didn't announce our gate as of yet. It took me a while to figure out that you basically needed to follow baggage claim to get to those gates, but rather than taking the last left turn to exit airside, you had to make a right turn.

The F-pier isn't the fanciest terminal to depart out as it was consisting only of seats and a few vending machines in case you became thirsty or hungry. Despite seeing a few departures, it rarely got very busy as the airport only announced the gate like 30 minutes ahead of it's departure with the majority of passengers moving to the gate when it was announced.

I also found the pier to be quite cold.

As said previously, Gate F05 would be used for our flight to Amsterdam.

The pier itself wasn't the best for aircraft spotting either, but here is our bird that arrived with a minor delay out of Paris Charles de Gaulle and would bring us to Amsterdam. 

F-HBLJ is going to bring us to Amsterdam and is a 15.2 year old Embraer 190 that was newly delivered to Regional CAE in September 2009. In April 2016, it became part of Air France Hop when Air France decided to merge several regional airlines into Hop!.

This flight was originally planned to be on an Embraer 170, but was changed last minute (early morning) and received an upgrade to an Embraer 190, which I assume, was mostly due to broken plane as I spotted that specific bird being parked in front of Hop's maintenance hangar a few moments later. The load on our flight to Amsterdam was definitely not justified for an E190.

As we already received a notification from Air France that our flight would be delayed by about thirty minutes due to it's late arrival out of Paris Charles de Gaulle, boarding was eventually called about 30 minutes past our scheduled boarding time too. This however went quite smooth and quick given the low load for an Embraer E-190 and found my way to Seat 03F. 

The seat up front had sufficient to generous legroom for a two hour flight, was quite comfy to be in, however was also quite battered in terms of appearance.

Boarding was completed within fifteen minutes of the start and the captain announced himself providing us with a short weather update of Amsterdam and informed us that we would be able to gain some time in flight to minimize the delay as the flight time was much shorter than planned.

The load for our flight to Amsterdam was about 50% of Y Class and 0% for J Class.

View of the cabin up front. 

And the view from my seat with little to no action on the tarmac other than a CRJ of Air Nostrum being prepared for it's departure to Madrid.

Pushback was about 31 minutes past our scheduled departure time. Finally the fog is also clearing up in Lyon.

And about ten minutes later or so we were rolling down Runway 35L for our northerly departure to Amsterdam.

Followed by blue skies about two minutes after our rotation.

Once the fasten seatbelt sign was turned off, I decided to continue with the review of my seat. The tray table of the E190 is quite large and was cleaned properly.

Unfortunately the aircraft did have little to no entertainment. The only literature you could find in the seat pocket was the safety card of an Embraer 190 and a waste bag.

The seat is also equiped with a reading light, an individual air vent and a call to flight attendant button in case you even needed to use it.

A complimentary beverage and snack service was engaged shortly after and I was quite surprised to be given a choice in meal options. It was either a vegetarian sandwich or a chicken sandwich. While it is already rare to receive some service for free in Europe nowadays, it is even more rare to be given a choice. The choice itself wasn't really much, but at least they gave you somewhat of an option.

I asked for a cup of coffee and decided to go with the chicken sandwich, though were never asked whether I would have liked some sugar or creamer with my coffee. While the sandwich itself wasn't that memorable, I found this sandwich to be more enjoyable than those you are served on KLM's flights.

Clean up followed soon after.

About 80 minutes into flight, we were already lining up for Runway 18R with a long taxi ahead of us. Weather wasn't particularly better comparing it to Lyon like a few hours ago.

With a 20 minute taxi or so, we finally docked at a remote stand about 11 minutes past our scheduled departure time resulting in a minimal delay. 

As we were on stand, I managed to capture a photo of the seat.

Disembarkation followed soon after and gave us a wonderful chance to capture our bird up close.

After a short five minute ride, the bus dropped us off in front of the terminal and I made my way to baggage claim 11 to pick up my luggage. I noticed that several passengers on our flight were actually exiting the terminal via baggage claim too despite having an ongoing connection with KLM to another destination, which they realized when it was too late. I understand the confusion they are in, however signage was apparent and clear as to where one had to go beforehand.

It took about ten to fifteen minutes for our luggage to appear on belt and once collected, I was off to home preparing for my trip to Asia a few days later.

Thanks for stopping by!