Part 10: Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) and the 'Salon Paris' lounge

It didn't take long for Charles de Gaulle to remind me why I hate utterly hate the place and didn't connect through it since my backpacking days a decade ago. Going from terminal 2F to 2C did not seem too complicated on paper however, and the Air France FA assured me that the walk was “short” and “straightforward” as you “just have to turn left”. In reality, it seemed to be more akin to a stage from the Tour de France in distance and effort that it requires. What. A. Long. Walk!


The corridor after arriving at my gate at terminal 2F

Weirdly, the only direction which you can take brings you first to passport control (on an intra-Schengen flight??!) and then into the baggage reclaim area of 2F. From there signs to 2C bring you landside at arrivals, and then through an eternally long hallway which goes on forever.


A long, long and boring walk over multiple levels from 2F to 2C


Getting closer to 2C..

In terminal 2C, the pathway was leading along the check-in areas, of which the queues were massively spilling over into the path of all passers-by. It seemed that 2C caters mostly to, how should I say this politely, flights bound for less glamorous destinations. It included airlines such as Air Algerie and some others flying to former French colonies. Queues for check-in were a wild chaos it seemed, with people blocking the entire terminal and walkway with the biggest suitcases I've ever seen and packed goods on a trolley stapled as big as the Eiffel Tower to bring to their families back in their native countries. Luckily I had hand baggage only and just could zigzag through the chaos and head straight for security and passport controls - which surprisingly had no queues whatsoever!

Terminal 2C doesn't actually look that bad airside, there is plenty of seating and it feels spacious. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said from the “Salon Paris” lounge which Aeroflot uses together with Air Madagascar, Gulf Air, Kenya Airways, MEA, Rossiya, Saudia and Uzbekistan Airways. It is dark, looks outdated and feels depressing. Seating was however OK and the lounge was fortunately not really crowded. The toilet inside the lounge was relatively clean. As the lounge was kinda shaped as a sort of letter L, I grabbed a seat as far away from the entrance a bit around the corner as in this small part nobody was seated. Weirdly, a big table here had a 'reserved' sign and later occupied by 7 or 8 airport employees having a meeting in the lounge.


The lounge interior


Terminal 2C departures screen - there were two Aeroflot flights departing shortly after each other, with also an horrifically timed red-eye which I avoided at all costs when booking my ticket..

After I took my seat, it was time to explore the food and beverage options in the lounge. Which were as equally dreadful as the first impressions of the lounge - with only 2 small positive exceptions.


The food and drinks of the Salon Paris lounge


The wines on offer


Some more food..

The food selection was just dreadful with some crackers, stale looking bread, croissants and some unappealing looking cold cuts. At one point, the lounge dragon put a huge pot of couscous on offer, which somehow even looked less unappealing as it looked totally dry without any veggies, meat, sauce or so whatsoever in it. I steered well clear of it all.

The only positive aspect was the champagne as the Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve was for sure drinkable. The same cannot be said about the reds – which were average at best having tried both out of sheer boredom. There were however two kinds of French cheese on offer - which took away a bit of the pain. The lounge dragon was friendly enough though during the entire stay in the lounge, and glasses were pro-actively taken away and tables cleaned.


A glass of Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve


Average reds - good cheese!

After a while I even got bored of drinking red wine and just went for a walk around the terminal, which looked surprisingly clean and relatively spacious and even somewhat nice.




Some snaps taken around my departure gate at Terminal 2C

The terminal felt really quiet - which was utterly weird given how chaotic and crowded it was landside at the check-in counters. The seats at the departure gate for SVO were almost completely empty. After hanging out around the gate area for a while and browsing the nearby shops, the gate agent called a dozen or so names to report to the gate, including mine. Unfortunately my name was not called for a free gate upgrade to F (Aeroflot anyway only has Y and C) as it turned out it was just the gate staff doing a visa check before they started boarding.




The Airbus A320 which would take us to Moscow today

After the visa check was completed, boarding started with priority boarding strictly enforced by the friendly gate agents. Even then, perhaps no more than 30 to 40 people showed up at the gate - a promising sign for what would indeed be a very light load for this flight to Moscow!

In short: I still don't like CDG - at all. And the Salon Paris lounge in terminal 2C is not a place you want to spend long in, unless you plan to get drunk on Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve which is about the only thing the lounge is good for.

Next up: Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) to Moscow Sheremetyevo (SVO) in Aeroflot business class