Trip Reports - Trip Report: LHR-CDG-JFK in AF L'Espace Affaires

Although this is my first trip report on Flyertalk, I am a veteren of 10-15 such reports on Airliners.net. Hopefully, you find this report interesting and informative. Any tips or pointers for future such reports would be appreciated.

Background:

I purchased my ticket through Travelselect.com, a U.K. based consolidator. Its key attribute is that it allows one to complete the enitre transaction on-line and their business class fares out of London are very good IMO. I've used them to purchase tickets to Hong Kong, Malta, Dublin and New York from London (where I was living/studying up to two weeks ago). The tickets were booked in C class for the LHR-CDG section and in D class on the CDG-JFK route. I was able to get advance seat assingments by going to the Air France ticket office in Central London, but I'm sure I could have done it over the phone. I selected Air France over Swissair and KLM (all offering similar fares for my route) because I had flown Swissair to Hong Kong and I don't have any miles on Northwest and I wanted to fly on a 747-400.

Saturday, June 9, 2001
AF 1371 (LHR-CDG) A319

My car service arrived promptly at 8:30 AM and we were off to LHR soon after. The drive was very quick, and I was at LHR by 9:15, which was earlier than I wanted to be there, but so be it. I had three bags to check, plus my laptop and briefcase, so the walk from the drop-off point to the check-in desks was quite interesting.

There was no line at the Air France counter and I was helped right away. The agent was nice enough to see if she did not have charge me for my extra bag (only two allowed) because I was below the overall weight requirement. I did not have to pay any extra, which was nice. I did have to remind her to put-on priority tags, but she did with an apologetic smile. As on my previous trips, there was no distinction made between me and a full fare business class passenger.

After walking around the terminal for bit, I headed to the L'Espace lounge. This was bar none the worst lounge I have ever been in (keep in mind I've been to the Swissair business class lounge in ZRH). The seats were only marginally better than you would find in the waiting area (two-seat benches and no invidual arm chairs) and they had dirty plates out (a fact I did not relaize until I had used one). I waited until they called the gate for my flight and then headed over. The gate was actually right across the hall from the lounge, so my walk was not a long one.

By the time I got through the ticket and passport check, the flight was boarding, so I went right on. I was in seat 1A. All rows in business on Air France's short haul flights are arranged 2x2, but they are no wider than a regular coach seat. Anyway, it was better than most other European business classes in terms of seating, although I found that the arm rest was too low for my comfort. We were offered pre-departure drinks and I took a champaigne to toast the successful completion of my second year of law school and the start of a summer job that will hopefully lead to full time employment.

It was a clear day in London (for a change) and we took off without much of a wait. Soon after take-off we were served drinks (more bubbly for me) and a snack, which consisted of a few cold canapes (smoked salmon, pate and cream cheese), a salad with parma ham, a roll (cold) and a chocolate mouse type thing in a berry sauce for dessert. There was no menu. It was very good and just about the right portion for a short flight.

The view over the Channel was amazing and I was left with a slightly sad feeling on leaving England for the last time (for a while anyway). Soon, we began our descent into CDG and we landed pretty-much on time at 13:10 local time.

I had to transfer to Hall 2C for my JFK flight, but I had over two hours before that flight left. I debated whether I should go to the L'Espace Lounge in Hall 2F, but I decided just to go ahead a take the bus for 2C. A bus was just about to leave and within 10 minutes of leaving the plane, I was arriving at 2C. Unfortunately, I had to go through security again before entering the temrinal, but this was no big deal as my bus was fairly empty.

I will finish this report in a later post, but I need to get back to work now.

Looking forward to the remainder of your report!

The L'Espace Lounge in Hall 2C is located below the departure floor and is accessed by escalator. I found a seat by both the window and a T.V. There was a full bar service and a decent selection of cold snakcs, including mixed nut packets, bread and butter, chips (crisps) and cookies (biscuits). They had internet ports with computers avaialble, but I found the connection to be too slow to be of much use. After an hour, I went back upstairs to convert my GBP into dollars. The one bureau d'change was closed, so I just walked around the shops and looked at airplanes. Eventually, the person manning the BDC came back and I changed back my money. I returned to the lounge and helped myself to some ham and cheese sandwhichs they had put-out for the passengers on a delayed SFO flight. Once boarding was called, I headed to the gate.

AF 010 (Boeing 747-400) (reg. F-GISE).

Unfortunately, our plane was parked at a remote stand, so we had to take a bus. The busses ADP uses are like the ones at IAD that raise and lower. After getting into the bus, it lowers down and then drives (at an exceedingly slow speed) to the aircraft, where it raises up to the level of the door. I was on the first bus and it was pretty full. We docked at the L1 door and after a long wait, we were let onboard. The bus was not airconditioned, so I was quite sweaty by this point.

The aircraft had been redone in the new interoir colors. First class was grey and red, while business was grey and navy. From the picture on AF's website, I thought it would be ugly, but it actually worked quite well. I was seated in 62L, which is an upper deck window on the right side. When flying to the U.S. from Europe, I always try to get a rigth-hand seat as it makes for nice views of the Eastern Seaboard, the LI Sound and LI.

I was the first one to arrive on the upper deck and was greeted by a nice male FA. He showed me my seat and offered to get me a drink. I had a Pepsi (no Coke on AF). The seatitself was quite wide and the legroom more than adequate (I would guess about 50 inches of pitch). There was a little space to store stuff between my seat and the window. While this was a nice feature, I foud that I was too far away from the window to get a good view. Of course, had I been closer to the window, the curve of the wall would have made it a bit tight.

It took a while for everyone to board, but our cabin was not more than half full. Everyone who was not traveling with another had their own set of two seats, me included.

Before pushback, we were given a round of prepoured drinks. I had more champagne to toast my return to the States. We took off within ten minutes of pushing back and flew on a course that took us over Normandy (where I could make-out Omaha and Utah beaches). We flew just south of England, Wales and Ireland and then out over the Atlantic.

The male FA was joined by a very smart looking female FA (I love AF FA uniforms) and had changed into a blue jacket for the meal service. We were given menus and a wine list. Interestingly, the menu only contained information on the main meal and nothing about the second service. The choices were as follows (this is from memory and not a transcript):

Starter:

Choice of salmon (both smoked and cooked) or (fois gras contained within another pate).

Main Course:

Choice of lamb medalions, a fish and a chicken in cream sauce.

Cheese (preplated) and Dessert (from the trolley).

I do not specifically recall any of the wines, but they were two reds, two whites and a champange. Sorry.

I had a gin and tonic for a drink, which was served with a bag of mixed nuts and raisins. For my starter, I had the salmon. Perhaps the best part of AF's meal service is the bread. It was abundant and fresh. The starter was quite small, so I asked the male FA if I could to try the fois gras, which he quickly brought to me. It too was small, but very good.

For my main course, I chose the lamb. It was way too overdone and not very tasty. As I had a perfectly cooked filet when I flew AF in first class in September, this was a let-down. The cheese course was good, but I would think that a French airline should serve it from the trolly. The portions were not large (but then again, this was French cuisine). The desserts were the big winners in my mind. They had a nice selection of fresh fruit, pastries, sorbets and chocolate mouses. I had a bit of everything.

After the meal service, I settled in to watch Finding Forester. When that was done, I asked about a flight deck visit and was granted permission. There were two pilots (no relief). Both were from the Grenoble region, which is where I spent a month in high school. After having this in common, I thought I was a shoe-in for a landing jumpseat. But, no, the captain had already promissed it to two of the FAs. Now, I know that FAs have a hard job and that the FA can make or break a flight. However, why should they get a jumpseat over a revenue passenger (albeit a discounted one)? Despite this, I had a nice chat with the crew and listened-in as we called Gander with a progress report.

After this, I took a little tour of the a/c. The flight was packed in coach, but the seats looked fairly comfortable. I do not know if FC was full, as I did not attempt to venture up there. After ten minutes, I returned to my seat and watched the movie about climbing Everest. I found it unwatchable, so I spent the rest of the flight watching the Canadian maritime provences slip by.

With 30 minutes, to go, we had not been served a second meal, so I guessed there was not going to be one. I really was not hungry, but I have never not had one. Soon, the FAs were back with a meal, which consisted of some sliced cheeses, plums and dried fruit. They shouldn't have bothered.

The approach into JFK was quite scenic. We cam down over RI and then across LI. We flew off the southern coast and went all the way past the Verenzano Narrows, before turning into land on 13L. The taxi to T1 took forever, as we had to go 3/4 of the way around the airport. I love JFK, so I didn't mind.

I was one of the first off the plane and the first to reach immigration (I am a very fast walker). No questions were asked, but the guy stamped over my Poland stamp, which irritated me. Oh well, back in NY. Baggage came-out reasonably soon and all three of my bags were in the first grouping. Despite having $500 of stuff to declare, I was waived through Customs (maybe because my foremr criminal law prof is the new Undersecretary of the Treasury for Enforcement, which makes him in charge of Customs http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif ). My Dad was waiting to meet me and was standing with the man who usually drives us to the airport. I had no idea what was going-on, but quite coincidently, he was there to meet someone from my flight.

All in all, it was a nice trip home. AF does many things right, but, like all airlines, needs to make some improvements. I'll go into more detail in a later post.

EXcellent trip report. The two kinds of salmon is extremely unusual. Thanks

Thank you for the report! Welcome to flyertalk! It is a wonderful community and your trip reports are very nice.

Air France is known for its food and wine service. The short haul food sounds much better than any US domestic first food service on a similar length of flight.

I am also disappointed to hear about Air France's second meal service. I expect that Air France will serve a decent snack service with all kinds of pastries and cold canapes. Airline usually serves a decent cold plate with roll and fruit service. Maybe you can write a letter to AF and hope they can improve the snack service in the future.

I look forward to more of your trip reports in the future and thank you for the website address. I will take a look into it.

Carfield http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

PresRDC,

Welcome to FT, and nice report indeed!

If you want to get along here, you'll remember to save Carfield your menus! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Carfield, where are you these days? I'll hit you with an email; I need to send you all the menus I gathered on SQ/TG/UA over the last 6 months or so.

Will

Thanks for the nice comments.

Carfield,

Travelselect.com offers a great service. The fare rules are clearly posted and their customer service line has been helpful. My only complaint with them is that their fares out of the U.S. to Europe, Asia and South America do not come close to matching those available from the U.K.. That may well be because airfares out of the U.S. are higher than Europe, but the difference is really significant.