Hi, dear flight-report members and readers! In this short retro-FR I'd like to present a review of an ultra-rare "baby Airbus" A318 - the smallest Airbus jet before Airbus acqured Bombardier and its CS-series lineup - on a short AF flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) to Milan Linate (LIN) in February 2017.
Intro
This flight was the 2nd leg in the AF ticket SVO-CDG-LIN, which I used to position to Milan for LATAM ticket MXP-GRU-SCL-GRU-MXP (its last leg have already been reviewed).
Air France is the world's last A318 passenger operator with just 5 units (in CY131 layout) remaining. Probably, in 2026 they will completely disappear, being replaced by new A223s, so one have quite a little time to fly them on intra-EU flights.
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG)
It was my very first visit to CDG. The flight from Moscow (on A319) parked at 2E/K (with "tube" design) international terminal and, having 2-hours layover, I passed immigration very quickly and had a lot of time to spare in 2F (also having "tube" design), which I found to be nice, comfortable and convenient, though, spotting possibilites were quite limited due to its design and impossibility to get closer to its small windows.
The Aircraft
My flight from Paris to Milan was operated by 2006-built F-GUGM with CY132 layout. This aircraft is still in the AF fleet. Due to the heaps of jetbridges in 2F terminal, it was not possible to make a decent photo of the aircraft in CDG.
The Cabin
The cabin of AF "baby Airbus" is very basic with 132 seats in standard 3-3 layout, with some first rows used for "eurobusiness" depending on the load.
The Economy Seat
The economy seats are slimline and non-recliners; the seatwidth felt quite narrow, but on a short hop like this flight it doesn't really matter. The seat has fabric upholstery, cup holder, small tray table and seat pocket. The row pitch is OK.
Seat pocket content: safety card and inflight magazine.
The Flight
The flight was entirely night-time, so there was nothing to see outside.
A cheese-veg wrap and French wine were served, which was very nice for such a short flight. The crew were very nice.
A couple of cabin views inflight.
The 2L door and the lavatory door.
The lavatory.
The Aircraft After The Flight
A couple of views of our "baby Airbus" in LIN.
Thank you for your attention and see you in the next FRs!
