Quick Trip Report: Paris to London on Air France
I was planning a weekend in Paris and normally I would use the Eurostar to get out there, however, due to timing and the convenience of where I was going to be, flying home was going to be quicker and easier.
Since I have Elite Plus status with Sky Team, through SAS, I decided to fly home with Air France, who are in Sky Team, and this would give me a chance to try out their facilities and the Air France experience as a whole. I’ve not flown Air France since a trip to Bogota many years ago, and on that occasion, I didn’t stop in Paris long enough to try a lounge, so this would be a new experience for me. I covered that trip in part 4 of my introduction piece about how I got into all this, read it here.
Booking
This was a simple short hop for a holiday, so absolutely no need to travel in business class, so it was booked in economy. Using my SAS membership, I got the benefit of additional baggage and the ability to choose my seat for free in advance. There was an option to upgrade, the lowest I saw was €165, which was almost double the economy price. For this I would get to move a few rows forward and get a light meal, not worth it in my opinion. The only reason I do it elsewhere is if I’m trying to get points, which I was not in this case.
Air France charge for extra legroom seats at the emergency exits, about €15 each, but I didn’t feel the need to do this. The flight was on an A220, which is in a 2-3 seat configuration, so I picked 6A which is the 2nd row of economy with only one person next to me before the aisle.
At the airport
I was coming from Disneyland Paris, on their magic shuttle bus that runs directly from the theme park to the airport, and it dropped me in a central bus station in the centre of the Terminal 2 area. If you’re not familiar with Charles de Gaulle airport, terminal 1 is the older one which has a very unique circular “plane-less” design about it, I flew through there with Qatar a couple of years ago, read that story here. https://flyingchris.com/an-unusual-trip-to-asia-part-1/
Terminal 2 is broken down to 7 terminal buildings, some of them pretty big, they are labelled A to G. I was in Terminal 2E which is the main Air France central terminal and the bus dropped me off very close to that.
I was hand luggage only so no need to check in, but I wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity to use my priority status, so I went looking for fast track departures. This was not very obvious, and I ended up walking to the Sky Priority check in area, where they told me to go back the way I’d come and take a right, down a corridor. I did notice this had a sign, but it wasn’t particularly obvious where it was. I suspect it was more obvious if you had gone through the Sky Priority check in zone first. There was a guy there guarding the area and I was soon through direct to passport control, where there was a dedicated line for people with priority.
After that I was into the main security area and once again I had to look for the Sky Priority line, which was off to the side behind another electronic gate, once through I was then spat out at the front of the main queue system for all the security. There was not a dedicated machine for Sky Priority here, you just get to skip the main queue. I was then bundled in with hundreds of other people that seem to have never used airport security before. Luckily the machines at this end were the ones that had been modernised and therefore didn’t have to remove anything from your bag. I noted these were the only ones that were of this type.
I followed signs for the lounge and headed to the main Air France lounge. The lounge entrance was very modern and clean, looked like it had been recently refurbished, which I think it had, and they had electronic gates, meaning access was easy. Once through the gates I was then informed that there are two parts the lounge, an upstairs and a downstairs, the upstairs had been recently refurbished.
So, I headed upstairs to a very open, clean and, in my opinion, clinical and soulless lounge area. It was also quite busy up here, even though with there were 3 different sections you could go to. There were more formal dining areas and more relaxing lounge areas. I got the impression that most people were heading up to this new area, so I decided to go look down at -1 to see what the old lounge was like. First of all, it was significantly quieter, and it had more wood and warm colours making it the slightly cosier space than the colder upstairs area. This area had two big seating areas, one with windows looking out over the airfield.
There was a choice of hot and cold food, plenty of wine, spirits and of course champagne. I enjoyed are quite delicious pork and chorizo casserole with some potatoes, followed by dessert. All washed down with champagne of course.
I notice that the Air France app on my phone was giving me an actual countdown, in seconds, to my boarding time. When it got down to 10 minutes I decided to head to the gate, which I’m glad I did as it was quite a long walk.
Upon arrival at the gate, they called zones 1 and 2, and with my Sky Priority status I was in zone 2. They called us up to check our passports and put us in a queue line so that as soon as boarding began, we were ready to go. I didn’t have to wait long before they started boarding and we went through the automated gates head down the ramp to the aircraft.
The flight
As mentioned, I was in economy for this flight, but as this is a European domestic flight, business class was still economy seats just with a little curtain and presumably a meal and alcohol options.
I was very impressed with the seat, it was modern, which means it has things like a separate cup holder and a mini shelf with clip on top to hold a phone or a tablet on the back of the seat. There was also USB A and USB C ports on the back of the seat. The flight was full, so the seat next to me was taken, but the seats were comfortable enough, especially for a one-hour flight.
After take-off we were offered a cheese sandwich and the choice of hot or cold (soft) drinks. There wasn’t a huge choice of drinks, I was only offered a coke or a water, but that’s still more than you get on British Airways. Also, the sandwich was actually very nice, it had a nice, seeded bread and cheese in the middle, you’d expect bread and cheese is something that the French could get right, and I wasn’t disappointed.
The flight itself was very pleasant and smooth, I managed to use the shelf to watch my iPhone on the way home and we managed to land somehow almost half an hour early. Arrival at Heathrow was uneventful, as I was hand luggage only, I was straight through passport control and out in no time.
Bottom line
I was pleasantly surprised by Air France’s service. A lot of people say negative things about Charles de Gaulle airport, but I suspect their experience is from the older terminal 1 building. Terminal 2E was absolutely huge, it felt like a major Asian or Middle Eastern airport terminal. Apart from the bit of disorganisation around security, my experience was very good. The lounge was very nice, had a good selection of food and drink, the seat on the plane was good and the service on board was good as well. As long as I have status, I’ll be happy to fly with him again, although it’s unlikely I’m going to keep this status as I’m not flying often with Sky Team airlines.
