introduction
Hola Amigos!
This is the first of a series of Flight Reports on a trip to Colombia I made in the early summer of 2022.
As I had still some credit from AF from a botched trip I planned to do back in 2022; I used that credit to fly AF and KL to Bogotá. This was exciting as I hadn't flown AF to BOG since they changed the A343s to 789s (they now fly A359s) and while I had flown KL from PTY to AMS back in 2013, this would be my first time trying KL from Colombia.
Within Colombia I was flying to the Caribbean region with LA, flying to SMR and returning from CTG…in sum the trip looked like this:
Flight routing
- 1AF MAD-CDG
- 2AF CDG-BOG
- 3LA BOG-SMR
- 4LA CTG-BOG
- 5KL BOG-CTG
- 6KL CTG-AMS
- 7KL AMS-MAD
at MAdrid barajas
We took a cab from my flat to Terminal 2 where most non-IB European airlines operate in Madrid. Remembering the traumatic check-in process back in 2021, we arrived early for our flight.
Way too early, there was no one manning the Check in counters, so we had to wait for a whole hour for check in to open.
BTW, what's the deal with the decor
The departure board showing MAD was catching up
After security, that was cleared in a jiffy, we were into the "pleasing" interior of Terminal 2, and the duty free stores.
Our flight actually departed from T3, which is technically a concourse from T2, which is more modern and pleasing.
We waited for our flight at the Puerta del Sol VIP Lounge, which as all the AENA lounges was quite good.
Nothing like a good breakfast with a great view…it is a great place for spotting
Then our little Airbus showed up
In a couple of minutes we had to move to the gate
I had sky priority, so we were good to board among the first.
boarding the airfrance a319
The cabin was the regular european style cabin, no difference between cabins. But the seats were way better than Iberia's or Lufthansa's
Seatpocket contents were reduced to the security instructions
Our little bird got filled up in no time and we were good to go
And after a rather longish taxi, we were off!
Enroute to paris
The sky was quite cloudy so there wasn't a chance to see much outside
Midway we got our drinks service
The skies cleared as we neared Paris
We were afforded nice views of the city and suburbs
We could also spot Le Bourget as we were nearing land
We had a fairly long taxi to Terminal 2F
And as we left the A319 I leave it here. I'll describe the transit experience on the CDG-BOG FR
Hi there, thank you for the FR!
Sounds like a pleasant flight! Just a few questions. Firstly, does AF provide any snacks on European short hauls? Or is it just the drink service for Economy Class?
And secondly, how did you book the tickets? Are the AF, LA and KL tickets booked together or separately? Because they seem to arrive and depart from different airports in South America. Thanks
Hello
As far as I remember the service is drinks only.
I booked the AF/KL flights through AF and the LA flights with LA.
Thanks for passing by!
AF's short-haul cabins are pretty nice in that they have decent padding compared to a lot of other airlines and the cabins are consistent with USB at every seat. I'm excluding the domestic fleet, which have hard slimline seats (but still have USB). Interesting there is usually a sandwich on this route...but I guess they still had Covid protocols in place at the time.
Thanks for sharing!