Review of Air France flight from Paris to Budapest in Business

summer trip to europe

This is the second leg of my Flying Blue redemption, connecting me from Paris to Budapest.  I had to book either a very quick layover or a long one.  Remembering that CDG wasn't easy to navigate before (and horror stories from friends), I opted for the longer layover just to be safe.

Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport

It turned out to be quite easy to navigate CDG at this hour, not at all confusing and a maze as I remembered before.  It was easy easy to find the 2F Air France Business Class Lounge.

air france lounge - terminal 2F

This lounge was renovated after pandemic (I think).  It was a massive space, but despite that it was a pretty packed lounge.  There weren't many open seats on the ground floor.

The centerpiece of the lounge is this gorgeous staircase leading to the upper level.

On top, you find a similar variety of seating areas and food & beverage stations.

At the end of the lounge on the higher level was the Clarins spa, but for some reason it appeared to be closed when I visited.

First order of business for me was to find the showers, conveniently located next to the Clarins spa.  Instead of asking for a shower attendant, it was self-service–just scan and enter.

The shower amenities were standard and included all of the usuals: toothbrush set, razer set, towels, etc . . .  I had a hot shower and felt very much refreshed.

Then it was time to check out the buffet and beverage selection.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  It was decent, but not exactly impressive when compared some of the top business class lounges. 

More important than the buffet stations were the coffee machines.  The rest/nap areas were all occupied when I visited, so I have no pictures of it.  I spent most of my layover trying to figure out how to stream Succession's series finale and eventually managed to do so.

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My ride to Budapest was on F-HEPC, a 13-years-old A320-200, here seen from the lounge.

I got to Gate 34, which was super close to the lounge, around 10 minutes before boarding.  This gate area was packed.  Boarding began at 3:51pm CET and honestly was kind of a mess, everyone just shoving forward en masse.  

This was a full flight, with 3 rows of J.  Air France has fairly standard European-J with the middle seat blocked off.

As usual for me, I selected a bulkhead seat so I would have some extra legroom.

USB outlets can be found between seats.

We finished boarding at 4:16pm.

Before departure, we were handed a moist towelette and a bottle of water.  After pushing back around 4:31pm CET, I fell asleep as the jetlag caught up to me.

Next thing I know I came to with a remote stand pulling up to the side of the plane.  Were we already in Budapest?  No, there was an engine issue and we pulled out so technicians could come take a look.  The captain kept us updated throughout the troubleshooting and was hopeful we wouldn't be delayed too much–though there was a part of me hoping for just enough of a delay to get EU261 compensation.

I have to applaud the flight attendants, who took this opportunity to serve champagne, juice, and water to make the most of this delay.

A while later, the technicians managed to fix whatever the engine issue was and we started moving again at 5:17pm CET, taking off 13 minutes later. 

Meal service began 25 minutes after takeoff.  The meal was . . . passable.

I had some more tea to keep me going even though it was getting decently late in the afternoon.

Pretty soon we were flying over the beautiful Danube.

We descended across the gorgeous Hungarian countryside, touching down at 7:19pm CET.

We were at our gate a mere two minutes later, meaning we were only delayed a little more than an hour.

aeropark

As an aside, there is an Aeropark right outside of the Budapest Airport with some cool older airplanes.  I'll have to visit the next time I'm in Budapest.