Review of Air France flight from Paris to Amsterdam in Economy

After arriving from my previous flight from Gothenburg and transfered from Terminal 2G to Terminal 2F as my flight would depart from here, I had about three hours to kill as Air France already notified me well in advance about a delay of approximately thirty minutes. While the reason has never been communicated, I assumed was that the load was quite significant for them to upgrade the planned equipment from an Airbus A319 to an Airbus A320. 

The orange shuttle which brought me over to Terminal 2F dropped us off in the pier for gates F41 to F53 or something like that. My colleague which was also on the previous flight was connecting to Barcelona and after having a coffee together we wished each other a pleasant stay at home and bid our farewell.

While I'm not an expert of Paris Charles de Gaulle at all, I felt that this section F41 to F50 something was definitely newer and more pleasant with more eateries and shops around. The ambience around here just felt better than the pier I was departing from.

As our flight would depart from Gate F34, I decided to move slowly to my pier and despite understanding the way to go, I think the signage could be way more practicable and easier. The corridor itself was also quite small and dark, but somehow rather unique comparing it to other airports.

A visual of our pier with just three eaterings in the middle which became very crowded at certain points with long lines of people waiting to grab something to drink or eat. I did not bother to grab something myself and found myself a seat on the other side of the pier as it was way too crowded. The pier itself was rather warm too as I felt that the airconditioning wasn't powered on or at least powered to the minimum.

Boarding was called right on our original scheduled departure and went orderly with respect to your boarding zone. The process however wasn't the quickest and the terminal itself didn't give us a good view over our aircraft for today.

Our bird today will be F-GKXH. A 21.4 year old Airbus A320 that was newly delivered to Air France in December 2002, before joining Joon's fleet in december 2017. After Joon's abolition in June 2019, the aircraft returned to it's former employer.

Aircraft's Information of F-GKXH

Serial no.: 1924
Type: Airbus A320-214
First Flight: 19/12/2002
Engines: 2x CFM56-5B4/P
Seating: 174 seats in a mix of Euro J & Y.

Upon entering the aircraft, we were kindly greeted by the flight attendants and made my way to the aft of the aircraft as I was seated in one of the last rows of the aircraft.

As you can see in the photo below, legroom was definitely tighter in the aft comparing it to Hop!'s E190, though the seat came with a cupholder if you did not want to use the table.

The view of my seat with an Airbus A319 of Air France parked next to us.

The legroom when I placed my headset in the seatpocket.

While the aircraft was generally in a good shape, it was clear that the aircraft was rather on the old side and could use with some deep cleaning as the white colour was faded. The aircraft was however equiped with individual air vents.

The table itself was definitely cleaner comparing it to my previous flight.

Not much later and boarding completed well ahead of the delayed time of 12.15 pm, the captain announced herself promising us that we would depart ahead of the reported delay as we were ready….. She couldn't uphold this promise though as a minute later she came back again reporting that they were not allowed to start their engines and push back until 12.19 pm due to our current slot.

A lengthy ride was necessary to get to our departing runway 09R, but made me be able to spot a few longhaul birds.

China Southern's Airbus A350-900 preparing for it's flight to Guangzhou.

Overpassing this Boeing 777-300ER of Air China that was departing to Beijing (PEK) as CA876.

A quick departure from Runway 09R followed soon after with a long easterly track as I assume that we needed to gain quite some altitude before turning northerly to climb over all the inbound traffic for Charles de Gaulle.

Not much later the turn was finalized towards the Netherlands and the flight attendants jumped into action.

A sandwich was served with a beverage of your choice. I opted for a beer.

The sandwich itself wasn't really one of my favourites as the proportion of cheese to sandwich was not here. The bread itself wasn't dry, but the one slice of cheese was sliced so thin that it felt like you ate more sandwich than cheese…. Also I don't think you could consider this a proper Swiss' Emmenthal cheese as it tasted chemically made.

Clean up followed about 30 minutes later and gave me a chance to show you the literature in the seat pocket, which again wasn't much and contained only of a sickbag and safety card. Would have loved a magazine on board (which to be fair you can download for free if you download Air France's app).

Despite the aircraft being 21.4 year old, it said that WiFi was available…. WiFi indeed showed, but for the entirety of the flight I never managed to connect to it.

A view of the cabin in flight.

Not much later we were already in descent to Amsterdam while crossing the harbour of Rotterdam, Europe's largest port.

The wind direction was definitely in our favour with an approach into Runway 06.

Landed on Runway 06 with an absolute smacker, though landing on 06 also meant that it was a short ride to our gate giving us only a delay of about 10 minutes past our original arrival time.

I was quite surprised to see another Airbus A319 of Air France pulling into stand next to us. Quickly checking up on it I found out that this aircraft also came from Paris Charles de Gaulle as AF1740.

Disembarking followed soon after and gave me a shot to capture the seats of our row.

Amsterdam however gave me a final view of our aircraft.

It took another 15 to 20 minutes or so for luggage to appear on belt and soon after collecting mine, I went on my way to home.

Thanks for stopping by!