Review of Transavia flight from Paris to Lanzarote Island in Economy

Introduction

This report covers the outbound leg of a round-trip to Lanzarote, the northernmost of the main islands in the Canary archipelago. There was no creativity whatsoever in this routing:

I chose the fare which included seat selection and overhead bin luggage, without checked baggage.

ORY landside

Arrival at ORY via Metro Line 14

The airside concourse

Our flight ws listed on time

I took the opportunity to use the self-checking machines to print paper boarding passes as souvenirs (though somewhat fleeting ones, since thermal paper fades sooner or later). As usual, the machine failed to read our ID cards (it always works fine with passports), so we had to enter the booking reference number.

We did not have any checked baggage, so we headed airside.

Waiting at the security checkpoint was minimal, and getting through was all the faster because there was no need to separate anything—no liquids, laptops, or tablets… at that new machine only, the other lines had older generation machines

ORY airside

CIt took us less than ten minutes to be airside and enter this unavoidable shopping area—which was fortunately not crowded…

… and featured this iconic Citroën 2CV.

The message in both Chinese and French is that other restrooms are available for our comfort, but not in English

There is seating and wide windows in the corridors, but actually few opportunities for plane spotting, and no AC or USB power outlets.

F-HETE, a Corsair A330-900

CN-ROK, a Royal Air Maroc 737-800

F-HSIS, an Air Caraïbes A350-1000

F-HXSU, a Transavia A320neo

Transavia highlights the growing number of A320neos in its fleet in its inflight magazine, providing a curiously asymmetrical comparison between the 738 and A32N: is it necessary to specify that a 738 has two engines, or to spell out the cruising speed and MTOW of the A32N? Why provide the maximum range for the 738 but not the A32N?

It was much more crowded there (though a few pairs of seats for couples remained available)
https://static.flight-report.com/media/photos/38/1772190000QIMI/img_5730a.jpg
… with mains and USB Type-A power outlets

It was the beginning of the second week of school vacation in Paris, but these game consoles were not attracting many young fans.

Boarding

The boarding gate for our flight was displayed at 11:25 AM, i.e. STD minus 40 minutes.

It was not quite crowded at gate E19

The gate staff arrived at noon

Boarding was going to be by both ends of the aircraft.
At the gate check, our carry-on bags are tagged for the overhead bins, but their weight isn't checked—neither would it be on the return flight.

The crew made their way past passengers already waiting in the jet bridge

End of the jet bridge

Door shot: Welcome! (in 24 languages)

Fuselage shot

The cabin of a Transavia 737-800

Entering this green cabin, still nearly empty

The window at row 6 (ours, on the right) was well-aligned, unlike the one at row 5

It was a 737, offering only 44 cm between armrests, compared to 46 cm in an A32x

Seat pitch: ouch! 23 cm from the seat pocket to the edge of the seat cushion—among the tightest measurements I’ve ever taken.

The seatback was completely flat, which made measuring the pitch difficult, but what really mattered (and was lacking here) was knee room. My wife was once again bothered by the passenger in the aisle seat, who didn't have enough room for his right leg… and I was going be getting jabbed in the lower back throughout the flight by the dozing passenger behind me.

With limited seat pitch, the fact that the seatback reclined (by 6°) was bad news. We were lucky though : the passengers in the row ahead did not recline their seats.

“Refueling in progress; please keep your seatbelt unfastened.”

The aircraft was equipped with USB Type-A and Type-C ports, which remained unpowered throughout the flight.

Passenger Service Unit, with air vents and individual reading lights.

Safety card with a minimalist design—front side.

… and the back side.

Transavia is a BOB (Buy on Board) only airline

Transavia has the honesty (or is it a legal requirement?) to display the weight of each product. The *croque-monsieur* is listed at 140g, which is average for mass-produced versions (though the price on the ground is certainly less!)

The Buy-on-Board service seemed to have done well. There was a (bilingual) announcement for duty-free sales at 3:10 PM (since this was an intra-EU flight, it could not really be tax-free.

Transavia’s route map illustrates both its focus on the leisure market (like this flight) and the gradual withdrawal of AF/KL’s legacy airline flights from European destinations.

Transavia was launching new routes that summer, and I was going to test WRO – see me reports here and there.

Pushback and takeoff

Planes parked in non-Schengen part of the terminal: Air Caraibes, Tunisair, Pegasus, Corsair and French Bee

737-800 and A320neo Transavia in front of the control tower

Ready to go!

F-HBNE, an Air France A320ceo: Air France was going to stop serving ORY at all a few months later

OE-IJW, an EasyJet Europe A320ceo

Her neighbor, OE-IVA, was as a reminder that EasyJet has based nearly half of its fleet in Austria to continue operating intra-European routes.

EC-MCU, a Vueling A320ceo

We would be taking off from runway 24, which was more or less the heading for ACE

Takeoff at 1:05 PM

Panoramic view of the southwestern suburbs

Business parks beyond the airport perimeter

The A6 motorway was congested with traffic leaving Paris that Saturday, which was the second week of school holidays for this region. (The A6 is the major southbound axis, towards the Riviera… and the Alps at that skiing season.

Paris was under cloud cover, but the Eiffel Tower and the Montparnasse Tower were clearly visible

Traffic is much lighter on the A126 motorway (which connects the A6 and the southwest bound A10)

The somewhat complex interchange with the D188

The university complex built around the École Polytechnique (the most prestigious engineering school in France)

Below, in the valley of the Yvette river, Bures-sur-Yvette and Orsay

Close-up of the Courtaboeuf business park, located partly within the municipality of Les Ulis

Les Ulis, a "new town" created in the late 70s that hasn't aged well

Cruising: glimpses when the clouds allow

Verneuil d’Avre et d’Iton, glimpsed through a break in the clouds

Laval was partly hidden by clouds…

… but not its airport, which allowed me to identify it thanks to the clearly visible number on runway 14/32

The Loire estuary at St Nazaire

The St Nazaire bridge, for almost 50 years the longest bridge in France

Noirmoutier Island

Yeu Island

Zoom in on Port Joinville, the main town on Yeu Island

After a half-hour flight over the Atlantic, this is Spain

The lake of the Barrios de Luna dam

We arrive in Portugal: the runway of BGC (Braganza airport), which was difficult to see because of the clouds

Braganza

The A4 motorway

Interchange at Vale de Nogueira

The Douro, with in the foreground the prehistoric rock art sites of the Côa valley, listed by UNESCO in its World Heritage List

The Santa Águeda reservoir

In the middle of the photo, the A23 motorway zig-zags to cross a pass through a double rock bar in Cerejal

Zoom in on this natural obstacle, and on the reservoir of the Pracana dam

Arrival at the west coast of Portugal

The port of Sines

PAX5F has found an unusual way to film the landscape without getting tired

The Mira estuary at Vila Nova de Milfontes

Last glimpse of Portugal, with Cape St. Vincent

Descent towards ACE

Engine power reduced, "fasten seatbelt" sign on, and, at 16:16, a cabin crew announcement: "Fasten your seatbelts due to turbulence"; well no, this was simply the beginning of the descent.
Accuracy in the communication was not her main quality: she announces a scheduled landing at 16:45 local time – which was French time, with a one-hour time zone difference.

First glimpse of Lanzarote's volcanoes

The “Sky Interior” lighting had turned red

Final for Runway 03

Touch down at 3:39 p.m. local time, right on time

The plane used almost the entire runway, without using the thrust reversers

Departure of EC-MUJ, a CanaryFly ATR72-600

EC-MOL, a Binter ATR72-600

Deplaning at ACE

Deplaning and heading down to the Arrivals level

Pushback of a Eurowings A320neo

The wingtip of a Eurowings A320neo, and an EasyJet A320 parked at a remote parking stand

The baggage claim hall - we walked straight through since we hadn't checked any luggage

Getting landside was quick, but reaching the counter of one of the local car rental agencies was another story: that’s the queue you see here. Sitting at the front of the plane and not having to wait for checked luggage didn't help; one or two other planes had obviously landed just before us. The irony is that, given that the rates were quasi-identical, I had hesitated between this rental agency and an international one… whose counter had only a few customers waiting.

To the right, the escalator to the Departures level

You couldn't make this up: the height limit for passengers bringing their surfboards!

Bonus - a vineyard beneath the ash

How do you farm agricultural plains covered in volcanic ash?
I offer an answer in the bonus section below.