On boarding the A319 I'm offered a juice or water - gratefully accepted after my dash through the terminal. Also offered newspaper or magazine. En route to Paris we have a light snack and a drink. There is no view - again extensive cloud cover, and in fact it is quite foggy at CDG airport. We arrive at the 2D domestic terminal. The gate is undergoing some repairs or construction as there is some off stairs to go up and down to get into the main part of the terminal. Due to the late departure from Frankfurt there is no time to visit the lounge, instead through security (which doesnt take long) to the gates which are absolutely crowded.

Boarding the bus occurs almost immediately, and on time, and it is apparent the flight will be fairly full - the bus is jammed fill and quickly heats up. As we drive out to our waiting Fokker 70 aircraft (a change from the scheduled Fokker 100) it is apparent the aircraft is not yet ready for boarding. A fuel truck is still connected and luggage is being put into the hold. Vehicles come and go delivering more luggage including some late checked bags (I presume - I suppose it could be bags that were misplaced and then found) that are delivered by car even before some other bags arrive on another truck. In short a hive of activity - being overseen by several officials, all the while we have to wait in the bus which by now is overheating. Obviously they knew the aircraft wasnt ready - so we did we have to board the bus at the scheduled time? All up we spent over 40 minutes sitting there watching the comings and goings.

After boiling away in the bus it was rather unpleasant to wait to board the stairs in the near freezing foggy air. Due to the small bin size my carry ons needed to be checked. On board I was pleasantly surprised to find I had the only empty seat on the aircraft beside me - presumably due to being on a business ticket for an all economy flight? - but was well toward the rear.

During the short flight a snack and choice of coffee/tea, water or orange juice, was served to all free of charge. By the time they had served us we were already well into the descent so a few quick gulps of the coffee before handing back the rubbish. Our arrival gate was on the french side of the airport. Since we were using an airbridge rather than a bus gate, the bags checked at aircraft were delivered to the luggage claim. My bags were one of the first out. Then through immigration to the swiss side of the airport. I had to laugh at the ladies on the information counter who switched back and forth from country to country depending on the visitor (there's a barrier up to the edge of the counter to ensure visitors use immigration to transfer between the countries, but apparently this doesnt apply to the staff.

I took the bus which runs every 5 to 12 minutes, to the Basel train station. Despite the signs in the terminal, tickets are bought from machine outside by the bus stop - can use either euros or swiss francs. The ticket machine at the train station only uses swiss francs. The bus takes about 15 minutes to get to the train station.

I was meeting chrissxb and airoli for coffee here - they both travelling about an hour from their respective homes. Since the change in travel plans had meant I would be arriving later than originally planned I had let them know of my delay, but not of the further delay at Paris (since not allowed to use phones on the bus). So I was very late for meeting them, and of course they weren't waiting at the place we'd agreed. I wandered around for a couple of minutes before thinking about what I'd do instead when we saw each other and so were able to meet. I was nice to catch up with them both since our last meetings.

Eventually it was time to go back. Once checked in I visited the Swiss lounge at Basel. It is very nice - even nicer than the one in Zurich IMHO. I had enough time for a few drinks as I'd made sure I had lots of time to check in. The reason was my paranoia (made worse by events of the morning) about missing a flight - in the next few days I go straight from one flight to another to another etc and so missing the first of these consecutive flights would be very bad indeed, especially with no later flights this evening.

The short flight back to Frankfurt is on a 737. It is very empty but a high proportion in business class. The sun has set well by now and so no views apart from glimpses of lights in small breaks in the clouds. To my surprise we have an airbridge and not a bus gate at Frankfurt. I try again at the transfer desk to make some upcoming changes and no luck there - please go to information counter. There I finally talk to someone at Singapore who quickly makes the changes I'd like ^

I go back to the transfer desk to pick up my next boarding pass - sorry we cant issue for the subsequent flights (say what - when did this stop being possible?) and head to the senator lounge where I meet up with zvezda.