Review of Air France flight from Lyon to Paris in Economy

back to london!

Hello everyone, today I will report a flight I went on that took me to London and the in laws in Exeter.

After a decade living there; I had a certain amount of friends and bounds to this very special town. 
2 years and a covid crisis later, I was finally overcoming the UK travel restrictions and come and visit my friends! 

Very surprisingly, despite the shortage of flights from Lyon to London and perhaps due to the covid situation, Air France was just 89€ to reach the British capital, a fare well under Easyjet and British Airways, and well under what I am use to pay on this leg.  

Flying blue Miles earned with this flight: 177
Status earned: 2 XP
Air France doubling the XP status in 2021: 2 additional XP

Although the app usually let you check in and have your boarding pass, I found out that going to the UK was limiting this service - indeed it is only at check in that the lady would double check your paperwork and issue a paper boarding pass.

Even though the majority of the Air France medium haul fleet is made of A320s, I must say this was one of the rare occasions for me to fly onboard one of these since covid.

As an elite skyteam member, I was able to choose for free, from the time of booking my seat on this A320 of the domestic subleet, comprising 178 seats.

AT LYON - SAINT EXUPÉRY AIRPORT

From the beginning of the Covid Crisis, the airport shrunk to operate only from Terminal 2, up until last week when Terminal 1 re-opened with the airlines previously operating from there.
The terminal 2 was recovering its "Air France and friends" atmosphere. 

There was an impressive queue at checkin - something we have not seen in a very long time!

Sorry for the blurry pictures - I guess I don't need to blur faces!! 

As previously said the - very professional and friendly - Lady at the AF counter had to double check our paperwork before issueing the long waited Boarding Pass…
She asked us for:
-passport (obvious right? well not since Brexit!)
-PCR covid test made 48hours prior to departure
-Vaccination certificate
-UK passenger locator form
-UK PCR test at day 2 booking reference number and certificate
-Statement of honour that we don't have any symptoms
-My UK resident status

just to cross the English Chanel, and it feels like we are going to Iran or North Korea… Even though she did her best to remain friendly, I am so glad we were on the skypriority lane because it took some time..

After going through security - very fast - less than 3 min!, I was able to go to the quite modest duty-free area.

I have been to a few airports in France, and I think Lyon is the place where there is the most an established routine… In gate Q0X Air France is almost the only airline to use them but Q06 has been invariably my departing gate to Paris for the last months or so…  

As we were there a good hour before the flight I had the time to do some spotting at the Hop hub…

I have taken this picture with a CRJ and the tower on the background I know but I really love it. 

It was a day just made out of sausages; not a single Ejet present…

Just before boarding we desperately tried to go the AF lounge…

At Air France T2 lounge

And just like since I am a gold member, I have never been able to review it… It is still desperately closed..

This is really irritating. I have been on so many flights from Lyon in one year and yet this lounge is still closed. From what I have collecting and consolidating, Air France doesn't want to re-open the lounge because there are all the other flights departing from the T2 gates when usually just Air France and friends do. So Air France does not want to grant access to people that have the gold status from another alliance.

So instead of enlarging a bit more privileges to a bit more people, they prefer not to cherish any passengers at all…  And this is even less of a reason since Terminal 1 fully re-opened…

There was a KLM flight boarding at the same time.

And our flight was ready for boarding.

And our bird of today… Do you notice how the sky became a lot darker?

Aircraft: Airbus A320-214
Registration: F-HBNE
Engines: 2x CFM56
Age: 14 Years
Layout: Y178
Named Lourdes 
Observations: Here is an unit repainted in the newest livery: the aircraft is named after a french town, the AirFrance title is as twice as big as previously, the "crevette" logo is more present and especially instead of the Skyteam Logo which moved to the rear of the fuselage, together with the AirFrance-KLM group logo. 

We were called to board on time; with the Skypriority respected, premium passengers were called first.  

We were on the jetway when we were told that the boarding was abruptly stopped… Indeed there was a lot of lightenings and thunders, and that it was too dangerous for passengers to board, let alone stay on the mettalic can that is the jetway…

We waited roughly 40 min before finally boarding… I was a bit stressed because we only had 55 min of connecting time at CDG, but luckily for us the second leg was delayed of an extra hour too… phew! 

I was not lying look at this rain!!

We pushed back and headed towards the 17R runway… And to my surprise the aircraft crossed the 17R runway to go the 17L runway. For those who are not familiar, 17R/35L is longer and always used for take offs; 17L/35R always used for landings. 

And so we took off from the landing runway!! Was it because the usual one was overfloaded?

passing through these heavy clouds…

flying over them!

Quite unfortunately, and just like the A318s, and the A319s on the domestic routes, the A320 assigned to french market are fitted with these low-cost designed recarro seats.

The crew made an announce saying that the service will start later and that they will do their best to serve everyone..

which they did for us - the beauty of sitting just behind the curtain!

It is a good thing that Air France has now almost retrofitted the entire fleet with Wi-FI.

I didn't know but there is also the option to watch live France 24 TV.

There are still no paper magasines on board and so I read it on the app. 

The tradition of naming aircrafts is back at Air France and is beeing rolled out faster…

at paris - charles de gaulle airport

Arrival on the terminal 2F as usual..

A list picture of the bird in front of Air France headquarters.

And we were heading towards 2E terminal..