Hello everyone, welcome to my second flight post covid pandemic grounding (the first one being the CDG-TLS leg ).
France's lockdown was first eased on May 11th but with travel restrictions, one had to remain in a 100km radius from home, unless a speciifc need to travel further. Then as from June 2nd lockdown was eased even more with no more travel restrictions within France, as well as the reopening of restaurants etc etc
After almost 3 months without flying, this short domestic hop felt like a treat.
While CDG Terminal 2F was pretty busy (note that T1 is completely closed, and out of Terminal 2 Pier A, C, D, E, F and G, only T2A,T2F and T2E are still operating) with flights to many destinations in France and Europe (Oslo, Amsterdam, Rome); TLS airport felt like a ghost town.
As of now there are only 3 to 5 flights a day only to Paris.
See the departure board
Air Canada ad for a nonstop service to YUL that never started, wonder if it will next year…
Empty security and hallways
I got to the airport really early, I knew there wouldn't be much to see but I really missed the airport atmosphere.
The A321 is currently doing one round trip per day only, operating the early morning TLS-CDG and coming back by midday.
The A320 behind was about to depart to CDG.
Of course with the Airbus factories in Toulouse, there are always some exotic planes to see, like these Belugas.
And long term parked Volotea A319 in front.
After finding a whole boarding area for myself on the lower level, I spent a relaxing wait, with no movement until my plane arrived from CDG.
There it is F-GTAO, freshly repainted with blue winglets and now named Bastia.
Boarding started on time and was done from back to front, the A321 being divided in 7 zones!
It took a while with the temprature check to start and the slow pace to ensure the 1 meter social distancing rule.
I was greeted by a friendly "Hello, welcome onboard"
The domestic cabin with the slimline non reclining seats (picture taken during deboarding).
There was someone on the aisle seat but the middle seat remained empty.
AF won't block all middle seats by default like some airlines.
This flight was 2/3 full so in the end all middle seats were kept free. With current load factors it's not a problem I guess.
Nice window view with an Antonov 124 delivering some oversized cargo.
We pushed back on time
Many brand new A350s sitting on test flightline, first time I was seeing the new SAS livery which I love.
After a short taxi past the Antonov……
… we lined up and quickly took of.
3 engineless A330neo as well as AF newest A350 and several parked AF A32XX were there
The Aeroscopia museum with the A340-600, A380, A320 and Concorde (among others)
Because of the sanitary context AF has tomporarily suspended their inflight service (as per the announcement).
Water is available in the galley.
I find this really disappointing. KL and LH all have kept a minimum offering even on economy short haul.
Also there's no inflight magazine anymore as multiple passengers were touching it.
Fortunately this aircraft was equipped with wifi.
Messages are free, otherwise there's a 3eur package for internet browsing and 8eur for streaming.
There's also a free selection of music, series, newspapers and a nice moving map.
All in all a really nice feature that clearly help pass the time.
The moving map has different angles to choose from
Not much more to report about.
I really like that blue winglet.
The Winged Seahorse (nicknamed the Shrimp by AF) was the logo of a seaplane airline merged into Air France in 1933.
We flew right over Paris but it was unfortunately cloudy.
Nearing CDG airport
Some nice green fields. A soothing sight when you've been lockdown in a big city for 2 months.
Touchdown!
Passing Terminal 1, normally mostly used by Star Alliance airlines.
Now it's closed and used as a parking for unused AF planes.
After a long taxi we finally parked next to this Babybus A318
It took a while to get off the plane as you have to wait for the people in the row in front of you to deboard before you do.
Overall a nice flight mostly because of the wifi entertainment and because I was glad to be flying again.
Crew was friendly, but without any service there wasn't a lot of interactions.
I really hope AF brings the inflight service back, because if it wasn't for the wifi, this flight felt a lot like easyJet…
Thank you Etienne for your first report post covid,
Funny that TLS airport is showing all expected flights and show them as cancelled instead of displaying only the ones that are operating.
Beside that, there are always things to see outside the window shortly after lift off from Blagnac. I wonder how the 380 and 346 made their way to the Aeroscopia museum!
Its quite sad to see those undelivered A330neo.
See you
Ooh, I didn't know you were gonna post it in English, even better!
That departures board at TLS is so 2020! "Cancelled everything!"
Was looking forward to seeing this route start up. Based on what I'm seeing in the schedules, they delayed the start date until October 2020--so shouldn't have to wait until next year...hopefully
Ah yes, the ironing boards on the "Métropole" fleet...Hopefully these old domestic cabins will all be replaced by the new, much nicer "Smart & Beyond" leather seats at some point
Next time you come down to TLS we will go!
It literally makes no sense that the other half of Air France-KLM has kept service levels, but AF have cut everything on short-haul. And there's practically no noticeable difference on LH, showing that service standards can be maintained if done smartly.
Nice to see the rollout of Wi-Fi and Air France connect streaming IFE on the domestic Metropole fleet and going so fast in general. A pleasant surprise given AF's tradition of sloooow rollouts of anything...like how long it took to get BEST cabins installed...and they weren't even fitted on the entire 777 fleet!
It is quite sexy.
Thanks for sharing! Makes me want to take a day-trip too. #Jealous