*** APOLOGIES FOR POOR QUALITY PICTURES, all I had was my phone ***
With this flight report, I am celebrating my 30th Skyteam segment in a year, which means ascending to SkyTeam Elite Plus for the first time :)
…Everyone is waiting for my hometown's new airport, which insh'allah will be open in 2018?19?20? In the meantime, good old Tegel Airport has to do the job. Everybody wonders how they manage to keep so many flights on time, and it is for sure an impressive performance when you look at the small size of the airport. It has four terminals (A, B, C, D), A being the historical circular building, B being a quasi-non existent hall between A and C. C is where airberlin departs from before they go bankrupt in a few years because Etihad has its codeshare agreement revoked by the German authorities (just kidding…or not?). D is another annex, has only 10 gates and cannot handle any long haul aircraft. In order to get from the main building and bus arrivals to D gates (where AF and KLM have all their flights), you need to pass this funny old thing, which is a Berlin suburban train from the 1930s reused as a fastfood place (we say Sausage Bar in German…).
Next you enter D through one door (there is only one door) and arrive at the check-in desks
Here's the FIDS, clearly indicating who the dominant carrier is for now… No long haul this morning, as jets from Middle East and US both arrive in the morning and depart around noon/afternoon.
Air France and KLM have their desks at the very end of the hall just before security
Security is often a bit slow, because the agents are rude and not very helpful at people with liquids AND you cannot buy a plastic bag for free… you need to buy for 1,00€ at a machine in the hall before proceeding to security… and nobody knows that. If you happen not to have exact change, well, poor you.
After security, a view of the plane.
Boarding is by walking, but without a bridge, because terminal D wasn't planning to host bigger planes like an A321… before the BER disaster (read: new airport not opening) it really wasn't busy around here.
Priorities were respected for boarding.
Now a view of the cabin, an old A321, yet not the oldest! These seats do not have ashtrays like AF's oldest A321.
Given how thick the seats are, pitch is a bit poor, I'm guessing 30
A view of the tarmac (pushback on time)
Taxiing, passing the historic building (A) first
And then Terminal C (airberlin)
Take off
A view of Brandenburg province at sunrise, lots of lakes
Breakfast time! Pain au chocolat, tea, water. I'm still surprised the AF upgrade strategy does not contain Orange Juice for breakfast. There is no cold drink but water. AB, LH and 4U do better for that on this route. Service was very pleasant, French-polite, gracious.
A river of clouds
Weather in Paris was foggy, hence we had to switch off all devices completely for landing.
Arrival at 2F 5 minutes ahead of schedule.
Nice report! I remember flying AF's A321 with the exact same interior. The aircraft itself is actually pretty new, probably built around 2008 or 2009. The seats for whatever reason are still kinda old school. AF is going to replace them with slimline seats however, so enjoy them while they last! Thanks for the report :-)
Thanks :) Well, they have announced to refit the A319 and A320s but so far, A321 (and 318) haven't been mentioned in their press releases. I wonder if they are trying to innovate further on that product or if it's the same renovation process but on a longer timescale, thus not worth mentioning yet. If you say the plane incl. interior is from 2009, it's probably going to be around for another five years or so.
Thanks for your report!!
I guess it was quite a good service.
AF try to improve it now and i think catering is better and even cabine crew try to be more helpfull.
See you
Yes I think catering got better and more generous in size, which is great. I have always found AF very professional, and they are now adding a little touch of warm, casual, personal interaction, which is very appreciated. I forgot to mention that one of the crew members was German (but fluent in French of course), and German pax really did appreciate that, asked her a lot of questions about her job, the security onboard etc. They wouldn't have done that if she didn't speak German, so I'm sure it's a smart move, event on medium-haul flights like this one.