Avis du vol entre Bordeaux et Paris en classe Economique avec Air France

the day i met ben!

As part of my job, I have been travelling to Bordeaux a lot of times in 2020 and 2021, up to a weekly basis at some point. This was the first time in my life I experienced a "regular" flying experience, where even some crew member might recognise and greet me! 

This particular flight was a bit interesting as - spoiler alert - I ran into a certain Benjamin!

Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 713
Status earned: 2 XP
Air France doubling the XP status in 2020: 2 additional XPs

I am not going to present Air France app, but still here is a screenshot of the boarding pass; it took Air France a few years to actually have a stable and robust app, and now it is quite user friendly.

Good old map of a 143 seat A319 assigned to the domestic market.

AT BORDEAUX MERIGNAC AIRPORT

I arrived with my taxi super star as usual. But this time around the Hall B was still open, it would close only a few weeks later to have all the flights departing solely from Hall A.

I was a bit ahead of schedule so I went towards the Hall A: for those who don't know bordeaux airport, there are a good amount of shops in the corridor between the two halls.
Amongst which some very famous caneles shops. 

how i met the boss

As usual a queue of priorities and non priorities people started to form in fron of the boarding gate.

And A LOT of Air France personnel started to come around the gate and seem agitated.
When suddenly someone appeared from the lounge.

Someone not that tall, rather thin, mixed race caucasian/asian background appeared.

Here was Uncle Ben! BEN SMITH! THE CEO of AF/KLM! He was with a young girl, perhaps his niece or daughter? not sure.

But the Elite members were called to board just after him and we followed him.

I was really surprised to see that we get so close to him.
He first went to the cockpit to greet the captain and firt officer, turned around and bim he was facing me.

I told him in english very simply that We re really satisfied with his work, that there is no comparison with him and his successor and that we can feel the airline is trying to go premium.
He thanked me and asked me if I was based in BOD i said no but I was coming here a lot for work and he said something along these lines "I am even more grateful for your kind words, that is always a nice thing to hear from a loyal customer"

He told me that the infamous ironing board are going to go soon, at least partially with the A220 coming up.
 
Some other Crews started to draw his attention and he politely said have a nice flight and turned around.

This probably seems like nothing but I was glad to have some words with him, and to notice that the guy is very simple, and very approachable - nothing like his super elitist predecessors. 

The other thing that I like is that he sat in J of course, but the flight was catered as usual, no extra peeks for him nor for us in Y, the seats were the awful ironing boards.. 

I remember joking with the crew that the big boss is onboard and they said that he is actually nice.

Anyway I got carried away

onboard the a319

Aircraft: Airbus A319-111
Registration: F-GRHQ
 Engines: 2x CFM34
Age: 20 Years
Layout: Y143
Observation: equipped with wifi
 

Take off

I don't know if these old A346 are going to fly some day..

and rotate

finally about the nasty clouds

The service was limited to a hot drink or water - exit the snacking option at this point of 2020.

Approaching Paris and some more nasty clouds..

With a nice surprise during the approach…
Can you recognise it? 

The Versailles Palace.. Maybe because we had the boss onboard!

The plane was equipped with Wifi and a one good thing is that AF chose to keep it free for basic messaging services.
From my work laptop. 

Since the first lock down, Air France stopped printing its magazine, and so it is digitally that you can discover it; it is available on the Air France play app. 

I must say at least the app is well designed and offers a lot of magazines, what is missing is the ability to stream some movies or series. 

And finally the landing.

I knew you wanted to see some more clouds so there you go!

at paris - charles de gaulle airport

Landing on the 26L with a view on the M and L piers.

and arrival at the F terminal, otherwise would have been a surprise!

And here I was at the famous 2F second section.

next flight to lyon

I didn't have enough pictures to write an FR of my next flight to Lyon so here they are:
The FIDS indicating my next flight.. 

I wasn't a gold card holder last time so I had to wait in the terminal the old fashion way..

And funny enough my plane to Lyon was parked next to the one from BOD!

As a bonus I'd like to show you the "collectables" that Air France offers on the app. I guess when it comes to aviation I am going back to my childhood, and like every man who has a passion, I have some sense of "achievement" when looking at these stats… I know silly right?