Review of Air France flight from Stockholm to Paris in Economy

Hello everyone and welcome to another series of flight reports! This series will consist of four flight reports and covers my family trip to Portugal in July 2016. The first part will cover the flight from Stockholm ARN to Paris CDG.
Background:
My family usually travels somewhere outside of Sweden during the summer months. We had nothing planned for Summer 2016 but my mom repeatedly told me she had to go somewhere outside of Sweden. Finally things materialized and we booked a trip to Portugal from July 12 to July 19. The fares and timings weren't excellent as we were late to the booking party but my family would get away from Sweden and that was what mattered for my family. Air France was the cheapest option for flights from Stockholm to Lisbon around these dates, Air France had to be choice. This would be my first time flying with Air France, it's always interesting for me to try out a new airline and this was no exception. The flight from Stockholm was scheduled to depart at 13:10 local time, my parents were glad it wasn't an early-morning departure. Three out of four flights were scheduled to be operated by A320s and the last one by an A321.
NOTE: Some pictures are taken with my phone and some with my camera.
Part 1 - ARN-CDG AF1263, Air France, Airbus A320-200, F-GKXR - You are here
Part 2 - CDG-LIS AF1124, Air France, Airbus A320-200, F-GKXV - Here!
Part 3 - LIS-CDG AF1225, Air France, Airbus A320-200, F-GKXT - Here!
Part 4 - CDG-ARN AF1062, Air France, Airbus A321-200, F-GTAT - Here!
12 July 2016, date of departure:
I woke up before 10 AM in order to purchase a powerbank from a nearby shopping mall that opens at 10:00 AM, I would then come home quickly and we'd leave our home at 11:00. My dad wanted to arrive at the airport at 11:30 AM for our 13:10 (1:30 PM) departure. I purchased the powerbank, made it home and had a light breakfast consisting of a sandwich, drinkable quark (no added sugar) and a glass of orange juice. I'm not sure about other countries but in Sweden 'Juice' has to consist of 100% real fruit juice. If it has any added sugar or if it isn't 100% juice it can't be sold as 'juice' in Sweden. I never had the iced espresso shown on the pic, I was supposed to drink it but changed my mind after I snapped the pic.

We did our final checks and were leady to leave the house at 11:02 AM.

Putting our hand luggage in the trunk of my dad's primary car.

Driving to the E4 motorway.

Entering the E4 motorway towards Arlanda Airport with a 'Flygbussarna' (Airport Coaches) Volvo 9700 to the left. It's missing an 'a' on the back.

Passing InfraCity, a business park and shopping centre in the Northern parts of Stockholm.

Upplands Väsby, the motorway shrinks from a 3-lane motorway to a 2-lane motorway from this area in one of the Northern parts of Stockholm County.

Taking the exit to Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.

The Jumbohostel.

My dad had booked parking at P21, it's an indoor multi-storey car park close to Terminal 2. Air France operate their flights from Terminal 2 together with KLM, Finnair, British Airways, Vueling, Iberia, Delta, AtlasGlobal etc. Lufthansa, Swiss, Turkish Airlines, SAS international, DY international and many other airlines use Terminal 5.

The signs weren't the best, my dad accidentally passed the P21 car park which meant we had to do a loop around ARN in order to get back.

Now we took the right exit.

Trying to find an empty parking spot.

We finally found a spot and here's dad parking his Audi A4 at 11:37 AM local time.

Walking to Terminal 2.

Terminal 2 landside, the BA check-in desks are visible to the right.

FIDS at T2, departures from Terminal 2 are shown here.

Security control.

After arriving at the terminal my sister said she was thirsty while me and my mother talked about sunscreen for the Portugal trip. Walking to SkyCity seemed logical to satisfy our needs, one thing I didn't know was that my mom already had sunscreen with her…

On the way I realized there were shops in Terminal 2 and mom told me she had sunscreen with her. We changed course and went back to Terminal 2. Totally my fault.

We went through security after my sister finished drinking her overpriced drink. Going through security was a breeze, there was literally no other passenger in front of me.

This is becoming common almost anywhere today, duty-free shopping once you clear security.

Our flight to Paris was assigned at gate 63, a KLM flight back to Amsterdam would depart from gate 64.

The area around Gate 63 filled up and I quickly realized this Terminal wasn't designed for this amount of passengers. Lines formed for the KLM flight and there would barely be any space left for the AF flight.

Anyway, changing the subject with spotting shots from ARN:
Nextjet Saab 340B and Amapola Flyg Fokker 50.

SAS CRJ-900, operated by Cityjet.

SAS B737-600.

Norwegian B737-800

DHL Boeing 757-200(SF)

British Airways A320 pushback as BA777 to LHR.

Hi Fly A330-200, operating for Norwegian.

And here's my ride from Paris! An Airbus A320 delivered in February 2009.

Flight information:
Airline: Air France
Flight no & route: AF1263 ARN-CDG
Scheduled time of departure (actual): 13:10 (13:37), 1:10 PM (1:37 PM) UTC +2
Scheduled time of arrival (actual) : 15:50 (15:52), 3:50 PM (3:52 PM) UTC +2
Scheduled flight time (actual): 2h 40 min (2h 15 min)

Back to the subject about too many passengers by the gate, the area got completely jam-packed after the AF flight arrived. Swedavia (airport operator) definitely needs to do something with Terminal 2, the area is way too small to accomodate all passengers.

Meanwhile there was an announcement for our flight to Paris. 'Ladies and gentlemen, the flight to Paris is completely fully booked'. That explains the mess at the gate, a full flight down to Paris and that wasn't all. The agent told us everyones hand luggage wouldn't fit in the plane's overhead bins and offered to check-in some passengers' bags at no additional cost.

Boarding finally commenced at approximately 13:00. After reading Marathon's great reports of this route it was finally time to try it out for myself.

A passport and BP check was done before walking to the aircraft.

Walking down the jetbridge.

There were two FAs greeting passengers upon entering the aircraft. They greeted me in both French and English.

I was surprised to see this bird equipped with the new medium-haul cabin. The cabin had a nice look and was very clean.

Not the best seat pitch but got the job done on this leg. The seat itself was pretty comfortable.

Suddenly it started pouring at Arlanda.

Seatback.

Lighting.

I like the colour AF used for its medium-haul cabin.

Coat hook.

Cup holder.

Finnair A321 with Sharklets getting ready to fly to Helsinki.

Closed overhead bins, these bins were larger than your conventional A320 overhead bins.

Pushback took place at 13:29 (1:29 PM) local time.

Safety announcements were made in French and English. Air France also played a pre-recorded announcement in Swedish.

Finnair A321, British Airways A319, AtlasGlobal A320 and an Ethiopian B788.

Taxiing to the active runway for departures, it would be runway 19R today.

Terminal 4, the domestic terminal used by SK and DY.

Two DY 737s and two DY Dreamliners at Terminal 5.

SK 333.

TG 77W in the distance and….. FI 752 in the Hekla Aurora livery! Unfortunately the weather wasn't the most spotter-friendly weather.

Continuing our taxi to runway 19R.

Rolling down runway 19R.

Climbing out of the horrible weather at ARN.

Breaking through the cloud layers.

Making progress.

Martin1405 tracked my flight on flightradar 24, all FR24 screenshots on this series were provided by Martin1405. Thank you! I realize this screenshot is full-sized, I tried to fix that but it didn't work.

The smaller but foldable safety card of this A320, the safety card was located in a separate smaller pocket rather than in the standard seat pocket.

The Air France magazine, found in the standard seat pocket.

AF and KL's European network with HOP's network as well.

A full flight to Paris today.

We finally left the rainy clouds and soon reached our cruising altitude.

Here's the powerbank I purchased at 10:00 AM, it's advertised as a 16000mAh power bank. It's huge and heavy but only cost me 150 SEK (EUR 16, USD 17,5). My phone's battery is absolutely horrible, it drains out incredibly fast and that's the reason for the purchase of this powerbank.

I put the powerbank in the main seat pocket with my phone in the smaller seat pocket where the safety card is located. The smaller pocket did me good on these flights with Air France!

The Air France Madame Magazine.

Cabin shot, taken at the back of the plane. It may seem like there are a few empty seats but some of the passengers were either wandering around or occupying in the lavatories. We also had many children onboard.

The lavatory in this Air France A320

Service conducted approximately an hour after takeoff.

Tray table.

Here's the offering for this flight from Stockholm to Paris. A tiny plastic tray with bread, butter, strawberry jam and a chocolate cake with coconut pieces on top. A hot sandwich with zucchini, pesto, potatoes and mozzarella inside was also offered. A drink and coffee was served as well, I had OJ and coffee to wash it all down. The hot sandwich was pretty good, the filling was a bit odd for me but it was hot and better than many sandwiches I've had with competing airlines on similar sectors. The bread was perfectly fine, I've had the same before. The chocolate cake was good, it was tasty and wasn't too sweet for my liking. In general it was a good offering by AF and better than most of the competition. Be advised that the flight from Stockholm to Paris is scheduled at 2h 40 min, AF doesn't have the same offering for normal intra-European flights.

A wet towel (not warm) was found under the items of the small plastic tray.

I finished most of it (except for 3/4 of the strawberry jam). The flight attendants on this flight were alright, most of them offered a few smiles here and there while they did their job pretty efficiently.

A very bad picture of the AF fleet, as of 1 July 2016.

Soon we initiated our descent for Paris CDG, descending through the clouds at 15:38 local time.

Oissery, a commune 40 km from central Paris.

Oissery and Saint-Pathus, Saint-Pathus is another commune.

Saint-Mard.

Dammartin-en-Göele to the left of the Route nationale 2 (N2)

Slowing down on runway 27L.

Vacating runway 27L.

We have an Air France B772 in the distance with what seems like an AF A380 behind it.

Taxiing to terminal 2F at Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle.

A really nice treat for my eyes. Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) Airbus A340-200.

Continuing our taxi to 2F.

An Air France Concorde on display.

Easyjet A320.

Finnair A320 with an Austrian A321 in the distance.

Action at Terminal 2F.

A Sheraton hotel is visible.

We came to a final stop at 15:57 local time.

Air France A321.

We had a connection of five hours before flight AF1124 to Lisbon was scheduled to depart, my parents thought it would be a good idea to leave the airport for a while. We immediately went to the arrivals hall after we left the aircraft.

Entering the baggage hall, my family decided to check out the Aéroville shopping mall located close to the airport. We didn't want to take any risks by going to central Paris.

Waiting for a taxi. We later learned there was a free shuttle bus service between CDG and Aéroville…

A Mercedes-Benz E-class would take us to Aéroville today.

Aéroville visible.

Arrived at Aéroville, my dad talked a lot about how he had made his first loss on the trip after he found out about the free shuttle bus service between CDG and Aéroville. We went back to the airport with one of those buses, I guess you learn from your mistakes.

Inside Aéroville, my sister and mom managed to do some shopping here before continuing to Lisbon. We spent a few hours here before going back to CDG. I guess that's it for this flight report, thank you for taking your time to read it :).