Review of easyJet flight from Toulouse to Lyon in Economy

Hello and welcome on board this report about my last flight of 2020, what a hell year we have passed… Like many of you all my travel plans were crushed by the pandemic. Luckily me and my relatives didn't have to suffer from the corona till now. I keep the fingers crossed to avoid it and get vaccinated ASAP !

intro

This year I've got a pretty long (two weeks) Christmas holidays ! For 2020, with the high number of case in France it was requested by the government to avoid large family gathering. So I will celebrate Christmas only with my parents, usually I spend the lasts days of the year in the Alps enjoying the ski slops… But another trick from french politics to save every hospital bed to care infected people is to authorize people to travel to the ski resorts … but keep the slopes and ski lifts closed.
Knowing that, I change my plans to spend new year's eve into my girlfriend family in Paris.

The routing for this special Christmas holidays: 

There is plenty of reports about this transversal line into the french database, I've written some of them on board of the 2 competitors Air France and Easyjet who share this market. But once again the English database is a bit poor on french routes and it will be the first report on this way !

Departure on First DAY of CHRISTMAS holiday

We start this report in front of the AF counters, not an usual sight to start a report but I was a bit in a hurry due to some traffic jam in front of the airport due to an unusual police control who's blocked the airport way for at least 15 minutes just few car in front of me… But just after crossing the airport door, I looked on my smartphone and I saw an Easyjet notification telling me that the flight has a 25 min delay. That let's me plenty of time to take all the pictures for the report.

The FIDS, isn't so bad for a corona day. But quit poor for a Saturday before holidays. You can see on the flight schedule one of the last British Airways flight to London, this line is on stand by since december 2020. (update BA is coming again since early june)

A bit of hydroalcoholic gel on the hands, and the safety checks are quickly passed. Just after the control stand you have this large advertise for Turkish Airlines. Let's hope that we will soon remove theses masks from our mouths.

The 1€ self service stand for water bottle is still there… one of the only thing that encourage me to spend money inside an airport.

Compulsory passage through the duty free shop to get to our gate. I'm bit surprised to see a large part of the air-side shops opened this Saturday. But there is some passenger's today so why not.

Inside the hall C the food court restaurants are still closed.

From gates we can easily have a look on the Airbus factory located on the over side of the runways. Some A350 are in the last step of the manufacturing process for Aeroflot, China Southern or Asiana. 

But also for Turkish, Air China or Iberia

Caution at Airbus a Beluga can hide another one ! A large part of the fleet is on the picture.

On the delivery center some A330neo are received by customers like Azul with this stunning special pink livery (dedicated to breast cancer fight) or this new Airbus customer, Uganda Airlines taking the delivery of 2 A330-800neo the shortest version of the A330neo.

There is some activity on the commercial side of the airport with this TK Boeing 737-800 to IST

An Air France A320 coming from Orly.

Same aircraft but British variant to LHR

For some passenger there is a more comfortable way to travel, this private Global 6000 will cross the Atlantic destination unknown.

My bird of the day, not as impressive as the previous jet, anyway … let me introduce you OE-LQG a 11 years old A319.

Time for me to go to my gate, here is the boarding pass available on Easyjet app.

Boarding starts quickly but it's, as usual, a mess on Easyjet with a low respect for priority and social distancing.

Our neighbors, this A319 of Volotea coming from Nantes. On the other side it's a Swiss cousin flying to Basel

I'm getting closer to the stairs, with a nice view on the CFM56 engine.

On board Easyjet A319

Fuselage shoot before climbing into the cabin, We welcomed on board by two friendly cabin crew.

The cabin is the old one, fitted on all the Easyjet's A319 fleet. The seat is the AI-1000 provided by Zodiac. I quickly get into my seat at row 12.

Pitch is not good at all. I far better on the Airbus A320 due to a slimmer seat.

Due to a technical issue we've got an extra 20 minutes delay, we are now close to 45 minutes of delay. An engineer will come to reset an faulty system as explained by the crew.

After dealing with these technical aspect we are ready for push back, we have new gate neighbors, now two Easyjet Europe A320's

Taxiing time will be really short and we are cleared for taking off immediately probably due to the lack of traffic.

General view of Blagnac airport, still not so busy…

Even if the flight is almost full, we are easily rocketing from runway 14L.

It's not really the case today due to a wing view + a dirty window but usually you got a nice view taking off from this side. Here is the Ernest Wallon rugby stadium near the Garonne river.

We are now turning around the city by the south, flying over the football stadium and the Garonne river.

Detail of the branded wingtip.

Not many things to see when we've reached our cruise level. Weather is not really sunny in South part of France.

Route of the day displayed on Flightradar24. Cruise altitude FL260 today.

On board even if the cabin is stuffed, it's quiet, the buy on board service as met a slightly success this morning.

Flight time is short and as we are just started the descent the audio announcement is performed the crew.

A bit of speed-brake to facilitate the descent.

We are now starting the final approach to St Exupéry airport, we are crossing the Rhônes river on the final for runway 35L.

After a smooth landing we gently vacate the runway

Two unusual airliner shapes are on sight, the left one is a C17 "Globemaster III" from Kuwait Air Forces, the other one, used as a fire trainer, is a L-1011 Tristar

There is some commercial aircraft at the gate of the single terminal in service today, the activity slowly re-start.

Even if we are flying with Easyjet today we will use a jetbridge for boarding operation not a common thing with the orange low-cost.

Like in Toulouse, passenger's has not so much respect for social distancing when it's time to get out the aircraft, and it will take some time due to the use of the left front door only.

The arrival path let's us enjoy some outside apron view, this Boeing 737 of TO will soon take off to Porto.

It's a short walk to reach the luggage belts and groudside area where some relatives are waiting passengers.

On my side I've got 3 hours to spend before taking my train to Grenoble, let's me plenty of time to perform an antigenic covid test before seeing my family. In France these tests are fully payed by the national health system. It wasn't necessary to get an appointment and I just wait 20 minutes to get my negative test results.

Starbucks is opened for take away only, time for a coffee break !

But most of the shops, where still closed at this time.

I will spend the rest of the waiting time in front of one airport window with a pretty nice view on aircraft movements, like this Irish A320.

Easyjet A319 to Porto

Unusual visitor with this Qatar B777-300 coming from FRA, probably used as an extra Cargo aircraft.

Transavia France Boeing 737-800 starting is journey to Lisbon

Like this Erj 190 of TAP express.

It's the end of the flight for this B737-800 of Royal Air Maroc arriving from Casablanca

After this small spotting session, I'm tranquilly reaching the high speed train station linked to Lyon airport, you just need to walk less than 10 minutes on a dedicated footbridge

View from inside of the railway station.
The bird architectural design is Santiago Calatrava's work.

And, this is my TGV train coming from Paris, on time.

This is the end of the report, hope you've enjoyed it ! Since this report I flew 5 times in France only for holiday's and I've got some flights scheduled for July within Europe. So 2021 look's definitely to be better than 2020…
Have nice flights !