Welcome to the next installment in this series of Flights between Washington DC and Rodez, France. The point of this trip to Europe was to go to a big Flight-Report.com meet-up which coincided with the Le Bourget Paris Air show. I also took the opportunity to go see my parents in the Southwest of France. I worked out a somewhat complicated routing to stretch out the miles, and basically because I'm an AvGeek and the more flights the better, when you are not time constrained, that is.
After coming back from the South of France, I spent a long weekend in Paris for the Flight-Report.com meet-up and went to the Le Bourget Paris Air Show.
Here are a few pics of the Paris Air show. The weather was gloomy and it rained on and off, but it was still an awesome experience.
Figeac Aéro…my region is well represented here :-)
The A350 is a beautiful bird. Too bad I didn't get a chance to see the full size version, which had left a few days prior to my visit.
And the star of the air show…
Hello Kitty is everywhere :-P
I hope the AvGeek in you enjoyed that bonus, now on to the FR
I arrived at CDG Terminal 2F about 2 hours before my flight. There was no line at the Sky Priority counters and I dropped off my bags without having to wait.
In 2F, there is a dedicated Sky Priority section that includes Sky Priority only security screening. There was noone in line there either and I was through in less than a minute.
Ever since I first saw Terminal 2F when I was a teenager, I always found the architecture to be very elegant and modern.
With more than an hour left before borading, I headed to the lounge. The agents at the lounge desk are very pleasant. After checking in, I head straight down to the lower level, where there's normally less people.
We're right on the tarmac level here, which is great for AvGeeks.
I easily found a quiet corner.
Although the lounge is pretty empty, you can tell that it had been croded earlier as there was still trash and half-consumed drinks left on tables here and there, including next to where I sat.
My flight shows on time.
I couldn't see my plane from the gate so I didn't get any pics on departure. When I got to the gate at the time indicated on the BP, it was a crowded mess. The gate lice–yes, it's an international phenomemnon, are already forming a line and I don't see a dedicated Sky Priority queue.
The agent calls Sky Priority boarding and there is indeed no dedicated lane. You kind of have to push your way through at the risk of being rude to be able to have your priority boarding. I mentioned to the agent once I got to the door that they need to come up with a better system because this is a mess. Havent dual-boarding lanes, which is not hard to do, would be a simple solution.
Despite fighting my way upstream to board, I was still one of the first onboard, so it was not a problem to find space for my carry-on right above my seat.
My seat.
Bye Paris! Bye gloomy weather :-)
Seat pitch..obviously not as good as my exit rown on the FRA-CDG flight, but surprisingly good. Definitely better than the seat pitch in normal Y on US carriers.
The cabin.
We pushed back and time and after a short taxi time, we found the sun again above the clouds.
The service started about 20 minutes after take-off. I'm not a fan of there Grissini pesto snacks, but that's just my personal taste. Besides that I find the size of the snack to be decent for a 45 minute flight.
Another nice thing about short-haul in Europe compared to what I'm used to in the U.S. is free alcohol. Since I'm headed to Germany, let's have a beer :-)
A cool feature of seats on AF is cupholders in the seatbacks.
I harely had time to finish my beer before the crew came around to collect service items for landing.
The clounds break up a bit as we get closer to FRA, allowing a view of the airport.
Thanks to the advice of Flight-Report member momolemomo, I chose a seat on the right sideof the plane. And what a treat, I got a great view of the Frankfurt skyline as we did a right turn around the Central business district to align for landing.
We landed early.
Hey, I'm spotting planespotters! That's a lot of AvGeeks ;-)
During taxi it's a parade of LH…
Hmmm….looks like we are going to remote parking, which is pretty common in FRA.
There is no wait for bags to be delivered once again.
After collecting my bags, I met up with momolemomo for a planespotting session on the FRA observation deck.
LH A380
My plane heading back to CDG
That great 5* airline
The deck closed at 6PM so I only got about an hour of spotting in, but I was impressed with the diversity of traffic in that time. I was expecting to see mostly LH. It was nice to see A380s and 787s.
Afterwards I headed to Terminal 1 to catch the train to go downtown and check in to my hotel.
Thanks for reading!
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Verdict
Air France
6.4/10
Cabin6.0
Cabin crew7.5
Entertainment/wifi5.0
Meal/catering7.0
Air France Lounge - 2F, F1
6.5/10
Comfort6.5
Meal/catering6.0
Entertainment/wifi6.5
Services7.0
Paris - CDG
7.9/10
Efficiency7.5
Access8.0
Services8.0
Cleanliness8.0
Frankfurt - FRA
8.0/10
Efficiency8.0
Access8.0
Services8.0
Cleanliness8.0
Conclusion
A pretty good flight experience on such a short flight.
On-time flight.
Comfort: These non-reclining slimline seats are a bit hard, but perfectly fine for flights like this under an hour.
Crew: Nice ground grew and good FAs.
Catering: Normally I grade 5/10 for standard short/medium haul snacks, but adding points for free beer and wine on such a short flight.
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Great pics of the A380, I was glad to see AV's ATR I've noticed boardings have become more disorganised over the years...thank goodness agents tend to enforce boarding order (most of times). Catering was rather lame (compared to LHs) but then again better than most carriers this side of the world.
Nice views of Frankfurt! Despite being a hub for LH, is not as boring as US hubs, nice spotting pictures!
Thanks! AV's ATR looks really good. Boarding has become such a mess because with so many Elites, people with special credit cards that give them early boarding, and just plain stupid and entitled people, it just becomes chaos. You hit the nail on the head, catering bettwe than in the Americas, but not as good as LH or BA.
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4 Comments
A typical short-haul flight by Air France indeed ;)
Great overview on Frankfurt-am-Main while approaching the airport.
I'm finally very impressed by the stunning spotting ! Amazing pictures.
See you soon !
I've noticed boardings have become more disorganised over the years...thank goodness agents tend to enforce boarding order (most of times).
Catering was rather lame (compared to LHs) but then again better than most carriers this side of the world.
Nice views of Frankfurt! Despite being a hub for LH, is not as boring as US hubs, nice spotting pictures!
Thanks for sharing,
Saludos!
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