AF B787 Dreamliner inaugural flight AF789 CDG-CDG, southwest/Gascony France loop (pic
Jan 8, 2017, 6:53 am
#1
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Paris, France
Programs: AF/KL Flying Blue Platinum for life/Club2000 Ultimate, Accor ALL Diamond
Posts: 21,909
AF B787 Dreamliner inaugural flight AF789 CDG-CDG, southwest/Gascony France loop (pic
Aircraft : B787-900, F-HRBA, delivered to AF in December 2016
Flight AF789, 7 JAN 2017
Scheduled time : 13:30-16:00
Actual time : 14:10-17:30
Captains : Marc Béranger / Pierre-Yves Collet
Dear FT friends
Here is my report for the inaugural flight I was part of
. Several other FT members were on-board also and it was a very sympathetic moment, although the 1st part of it was a bit spoiled by some kind of disorganization (will be detailed below). I was booked in Y at a window seat.
As you know from another thread in this forum, those inaugural flights were not that cheap, as it was €250 in Y and €787 in J (I forgot the price in W). All pax received an e-mail a few days before the flight explaining that it will depart from 2E (hall M), check-in would be in a dedicated zone of the terminal and that pax would be allowed to go on the apron to take pictures and some special pictures of the pax at the foot of the plane would be also taken by an appointed photographer. Only carry-on bags were allowed.
I arrived with Olivedel in CDG around 10:45 and we get off the lift from the parking lot just at the SkyP check-in area. There was a big "welcome 787" sign at the entrance of this zone, so we thought we could check-in here and that was the case indeed (there were 2 specials counters at the back of the area).
We were very nicely welcomed and, for the FTers who attended the AF CDG Flyertalk DO in 2012, guess who checked-us in : the famous Jean-Paul (I am sure you remember this unforgettable guy). Check-in was very quick and we were instructed to use a special lane for passport control. As you can see specially-designed BP were issued.
Arrived at M concourse, we went straight to the lounge, as there was no point going to the gate (the previous maiden flight (coded AF787) was still in flight near Albertville coming from Corsica). We had no problem entering the nice M lounge thanks to our Platinum status. It was a decent time to drink some Champagne to celebrate this special day and we had the pleasure to see that they were serving the very good Billecart-Salmon Champagne. Our friend Nico40 joined us at that time in the lounge to share some champagne with us.
We were checking on Flightradar24 the status of the previous maiden flight and we saw it landing on the south runway (you can see it on the picture below, behind the huge A380 tail.
A welcome committee was present at gate M44 (sorry, the pictures are not very good, but it's not possible to do better from the lounge). It arrived at the gate with a 45 min delay.
About 20 minutes after the arrival of the incoming flight, we thought it was a good time to go to the gate to attend the picture ceremony. A big messy crowd was at the gate, and we finally understood thanks to the rumors spreading that we needed to collect and fill a form and obtain in return a paper sheet showing a reference number. But no announcement was made and the whole process was very slow and messy. At one point, nothing was moving at all and we were already in line for a good 30-45 min when finally they made an announcement to say that no more persons will be allowed to go at the foot of the aircraft to take pictures because no more time, and that overall there were only 80 "slots" allowed for pictures. Everyone was furious because all those people taking this flight were plane aficionados and the picture thing was an advertised “benefit” during the booking and at check-in and also at the lounge.
Why on earth they didn't ask pax to fill their forms at check-in (or even before by e-mail/internet) ??? None of us (FT community) was able to participate to the picture event and we were very unhappy about that, as well as a big half of the pax. AF has really made a mistake here and could have easily avoided it. Fortunately, the rest of the adventure was much much better.
At least, here are some pics from the terminal.
Not a surprise knowing the 45 min delay of the incoming maiden flight, our flight was now shown on the screen to depart at 14:10 (40 min delay), so we went back to the lounge to have some more champagne and forget this poorly managed step.
At our boarding time, we went back to the gate and boarded through the SkyP lane which was well enforced.
Welcome on-board !
As you can imagine, the ambiance in this kind of flight is very special and the crew was even nicer than usual and very proud to welcome us in their brand new bird. Here are a few shots of the elegant cabins during boarding.
A special gift bag was placed on all seats with some AF goodies. There were some additional goodies for W and J pax. Those had for instance a nice desk static model of the AF B787-900.
The Y seat with the last version of the IFE.
The flight was about 95% full. Comments were given throughout the flight by the Europe 1 radio station journalist Bernard Chabbert who was also a pilot himself. (he is 72 y.o.) A special message from Thomas Pesquet, the French astronaut who is right now in the international space station and is an AF A320 captain (I didn't know that before) was displayed on the video system just before the safety video. How cool ^ ! You will notice that he is showing in the vidéo an A380
Taxiing to the runway and passing behind some A388 (it’s with this view that you realize how big is the tail of the 388, the size of an A320 wing !)
Powerful take-off from runway 26R and we were very rapidly in the clouds. The weather was not good in Paris but at least we had no rain and no need to go through deicing. Fortunately, the weather improved quickly as it was clear and sunny sky for the rest of the flight until we descended back to CDG.
The menu was distributed (a different one per cabin). You can see here the Y (first pictures) and J (last picture) menus.
The Y meal (I haven't seen those small bottles of Champagne on-board AF for ages - ahh the good old time of those free small bottles of champagne given in Y on medium-haul flights...).
Our flight path bring us to Nantes, Noirmoutiers and Yeu islands (picture below), Ré and Oléron islands / La Rochelle, Royan, Gascony bay, Bordeaux, Tarbes , Pau, with fabulous views of Pyrénées mountains.
Noirmoutiers and Yeu islands:
Atlantic coast near Royan:
Garonne river and Bordeaux city:
Pyrénées mountains:
During the flight, everyone moved around the different cabins, including the cockpit
!! Some pics of the different cabins, the beautiful wings of the B787 and the cockpit.
J cabin:
Y cabin:
Cockpit:
Great ambiance on-board, a lot of interactions between the crew and the pax ^. The crew was very happy and proud to show their new plane and to work on those maiden flights.
Look at the new sophisticated ovens they have in the galley with different settings depending on the kind of food you need to warm-up.
As you likely know, the windows are larger in the B787 and there is no window shade. You can control the darkness/brightness by a button below the window. Of course, I played a bit with it. On one of the picture you can see the difference between my window and the one upfront.
Regarding the seats:
-Y : Configuration is 3-3-3. The seat is the same as the one installed in the BEST-retrofitted aircrafts and the pitch is not bad at all. USB ports are available at every seat and there are 2 power plugs for 3 seats. They work well as my phone was fully charged in 1hr.
-W : Configuration is 2-3-2. As you may know, AF announced an improved W seat in the Dreamliner. And it is true!!! The seat looks exactly the same as the one you know, but the seat is moving forward much more, meaning that I believe you can really sleep now. I tried it and found it way more comfortable than the existing one. So this is a great news for W flyers if you can fly the B789. I don't know if they have plans to retrofit the rest of the fleet, but I hope...
-J: similar BEST seat as in the 777, but as the fuselage is more narrow, it's not exactly the same. The part where you seat/lie down looks very similar (I didn't feel any difference in width at the shoulders). The personal storage cabinet is smaller (but at least it still exists and is very convenient). The main difference is for the tray table which is much smaller, and I would say too small (see picture). I am of the opinion that they should have made something different.
Wifi is available on-board. It was not free for this maiden flight. I didn’t connect but you can see below the different screens and offers. You can log-in with your FB profile to have all the details pre-filled. But as I said in another thread, I think their offer is not adapted at all. Come on ! 20, 50 or 200 Mo are just nothing and will be consumed in just a few minutes. Just good to receive and send a dozen of e-mails without attached files of course. They should propose the same kind of offers as DL based on time and not on data volume.
What was nice is that there was not the slightest bump/turbulence during the entire flight, so no disruptions for the service, visits and chats between pax and with the crew. It was now time to go back to CDG, unfortunately. We had finally a longer flight than scheduled but nobody complained ! We descended through the coud layer that got very thick in the Paris area. The weather clearly worsened since we left. We saw the ground literally 5 sec before landing !
Those wings are really splendid, aren’t they ?
Everyone applauded the crew several times and we were all very happy of this nice afternoon on-board this nice new bird. Upon disembarking, we were given a flight certificate.
I hope you have enjoyed this long report and F-HRBA is starting its 1st revenue regular service to CAI tomorrow (monday 9/1).
Flight AF789, 7 JAN 2017
Scheduled time : 13:30-16:00
Actual time : 14:10-17:30
Captains : Marc Béranger / Pierre-Yves Collet
Dear FT friends
Here is my report for the inaugural flight I was part of
. Several other FT members were on-board also and it was a very sympathetic moment, although the 1st part of it was a bit spoiled by some kind of disorganization (will be detailed below). I was booked in Y at a window seat.As you know from another thread in this forum, those inaugural flights were not that cheap, as it was €250 in Y and €787 in J (I forgot the price in W). All pax received an e-mail a few days before the flight explaining that it will depart from 2E (hall M), check-in would be in a dedicated zone of the terminal and that pax would be allowed to go on the apron to take pictures and some special pictures of the pax at the foot of the plane would be also taken by an appointed photographer. Only carry-on bags were allowed.
I arrived with Olivedel in CDG around 10:45 and we get off the lift from the parking lot just at the SkyP check-in area. There was a big "welcome 787" sign at the entrance of this zone, so we thought we could check-in here and that was the case indeed (there were 2 specials counters at the back of the area).
We were very nicely welcomed and, for the FTers who attended the AF CDG Flyertalk DO in 2012, guess who checked-us in : the famous Jean-Paul (I am sure you remember this unforgettable guy). Check-in was very quick and we were instructed to use a special lane for passport control. As you can see specially-designed BP were issued.
Arrived at M concourse, we went straight to the lounge, as there was no point going to the gate (the previous maiden flight (coded AF787) was still in flight near Albertville coming from Corsica). We had no problem entering the nice M lounge thanks to our Platinum status. It was a decent time to drink some Champagne to celebrate this special day and we had the pleasure to see that they were serving the very good Billecart-Salmon Champagne. Our friend Nico40 joined us at that time in the lounge to share some champagne with us.
We were checking on Flightradar24 the status of the previous maiden flight and we saw it landing on the south runway (you can see it on the picture below, behind the huge A380 tail.
A welcome committee was present at gate M44 (sorry, the pictures are not very good, but it's not possible to do better from the lounge). It arrived at the gate with a 45 min delay.
About 20 minutes after the arrival of the incoming flight, we thought it was a good time to go to the gate to attend the picture ceremony. A big messy crowd was at the gate, and we finally understood thanks to the rumors spreading that we needed to collect and fill a form and obtain in return a paper sheet showing a reference number. But no announcement was made and the whole process was very slow and messy. At one point, nothing was moving at all and we were already in line for a good 30-45 min when finally they made an announcement to say that no more persons will be allowed to go at the foot of the aircraft to take pictures because no more time, and that overall there were only 80 "slots" allowed for pictures. Everyone was furious because all those people taking this flight were plane aficionados and the picture thing was an advertised “benefit” during the booking and at check-in and also at the lounge.
Why on earth they didn't ask pax to fill their forms at check-in (or even before by e-mail/internet) ??? None of us (FT community) was able to participate to the picture event and we were very unhappy about that, as well as a big half of the pax. AF has really made a mistake here and could have easily avoided it. Fortunately, the rest of the adventure was much much better.At least, here are some pics from the terminal.
Not a surprise knowing the 45 min delay of the incoming maiden flight, our flight was now shown on the screen to depart at 14:10 (40 min delay), so we went back to the lounge to have some more champagne and forget this poorly managed step.
At our boarding time, we went back to the gate and boarded through the SkyP lane which was well enforced.
Welcome on-board !
As you can imagine, the ambiance in this kind of flight is very special and the crew was even nicer than usual and very proud to welcome us in their brand new bird. Here are a few shots of the elegant cabins during boarding.
A special gift bag was placed on all seats with some AF goodies. There were some additional goodies for W and J pax. Those had for instance a nice desk static model of the AF B787-900.
The Y seat with the last version of the IFE.
The flight was about 95% full. Comments were given throughout the flight by the Europe 1 radio station journalist Bernard Chabbert who was also a pilot himself. (he is 72 y.o.) A special message from Thomas Pesquet, the French astronaut who is right now in the international space station and is an AF A320 captain (I didn't know that before) was displayed on the video system just before the safety video. How cool ^ ! You will notice that he is showing in the vidéo an A380
Taxiing to the runway and passing behind some A388 (it’s with this view that you realize how big is the tail of the 388, the size of an A320 wing !)
Powerful take-off from runway 26R and we were very rapidly in the clouds. The weather was not good in Paris but at least we had no rain and no need to go through deicing. Fortunately, the weather improved quickly as it was clear and sunny sky for the rest of the flight until we descended back to CDG.
The menu was distributed (a different one per cabin). You can see here the Y (first pictures) and J (last picture) menus.
The Y meal (I haven't seen those small bottles of Champagne on-board AF for ages - ahh the good old time of those free small bottles of champagne given in Y on medium-haul flights...).
Our flight path bring us to Nantes, Noirmoutiers and Yeu islands (picture below), Ré and Oléron islands / La Rochelle, Royan, Gascony bay, Bordeaux, Tarbes , Pau, with fabulous views of Pyrénées mountains.
Noirmoutiers and Yeu islands:
Atlantic coast near Royan:
Garonne river and Bordeaux city:
Pyrénées mountains:
During the flight, everyone moved around the different cabins, including the cockpit
!! Some pics of the different cabins, the beautiful wings of the B787 and the cockpit.J cabin:
Y cabin:
Cockpit:
Great ambiance on-board, a lot of interactions between the crew and the pax ^. The crew was very happy and proud to show their new plane and to work on those maiden flights.
Look at the new sophisticated ovens they have in the galley with different settings depending on the kind of food you need to warm-up.
As you likely know, the windows are larger in the B787 and there is no window shade. You can control the darkness/brightness by a button below the window. Of course, I played a bit with it. On one of the picture you can see the difference between my window and the one upfront.
Regarding the seats:
-Y : Configuration is 3-3-3. The seat is the same as the one installed in the BEST-retrofitted aircrafts and the pitch is not bad at all. USB ports are available at every seat and there are 2 power plugs for 3 seats. They work well as my phone was fully charged in 1hr.
-W : Configuration is 2-3-2. As you may know, AF announced an improved W seat in the Dreamliner. And it is true!!!
The seat looks exactly the same as the one you know, but the seat is moving forward much more, meaning that I believe you can really sleep now. I tried it and found it way more comfortable than the existing one. So this is a great news for W flyers if you can fly the B789. I don't know if they have plans to retrofit the rest of the fleet, but I hope...-J: similar BEST seat as in the 777, but as the fuselage is more narrow, it's not exactly the same. The part where you seat/lie down looks very similar (I didn't feel any difference in width at the shoulders). The personal storage cabinet is smaller (but at least it still exists and is very convenient). The main difference is for the tray table which is much smaller, and I would say too small (see picture). I am of the opinion that they should have made something different.
Wifi is available on-board. It was not free for this maiden flight. I didn’t connect but you can see below the different screens and offers. You can log-in with your FB profile to have all the details pre-filled. But as I said in another thread, I think their offer is not adapted at all. Come on ! 20, 50 or 200 Mo are just nothing and will be consumed in just a few minutes. Just good to receive and send a dozen of e-mails without attached files of course. They should propose the same kind of offers as DL based on time and not on data volume.
What was nice is that there was not the slightest bump/turbulence during the entire flight, so no disruptions for the service, visits and chats between pax and with the crew. It was now time to go back to CDG, unfortunately. We had finally a longer flight than scheduled but nobody complained ! We descended through the coud layer that got very thick in the Paris area. The weather clearly worsened since we left. We saw the ground literally 5 sec before landing !
Those wings are really splendid, aren’t they ?
Everyone applauded the crew several times and we were all very happy of this nice afternoon on-board this nice new bird. Upon disembarking, we were given a flight certificate.
I hope you have enjoyed this long report
and F-HRBA is starting its 1st revenue regular service to CAI tomorrow (monday 9/1).
Last edited by Goldorak; Jan 8, 2017 at 6:58 am
Jan 8, 2017, 10:47 am
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Paris, France
Programs: AF/KL Flying Blue Platinum for life/Club2000 Ultimate, Accor ALL Diamond
Posts: 21,909
booklet, stickers, a cap, a 787-labeled "remove before flight" tag. Regarding the blue square thing, I am not sure what's its use. I think it's something to clean the screen of your phone/tablet or glasses
Jan 8, 2017, 12:04 pm
#6
Join Date: Sep 2015
Programs: LH SEN; BA Gold
Posts: 8,403
Nice report.
And I like these sorts of events. Usually the crews are so enthusiastic about their new toy. (Who wouldn't be?). I always like it when I get in an aircraft and it smells like "new aircraft". On my last flight with a relatively new plane (3 weeks old), I couldn't help myself:
Me -"Ohh a new aircraft"
F/A -"Yes indeed!" with a big bright
And I like these sorts of events. Usually the crews are so enthusiastic about their new toy. (Who wouldn't be?). I always like it when I get in an aircraft and it smells like "new aircraft". On my last flight with a relatively new plane (3 weeks old), I couldn't help myself:
Me -"Ohh a new aircraft"
F/A -"Yes indeed!" with a big bright
Jan 8, 2017, 12:11 pm
#7
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Paris, France
Programs: AF/KL Flying Blue Platinum for life/Club2000 Ultimate, Accor ALL Diamond
Posts: 21,909
Jan 8, 2017, 1:29 pm
#8
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Nice, France, EU
Programs: Flying Blue Platinum For Life, BA Bronze, LH FQTV
Posts: 114
Indeed, while I was flying from Nice, I had to retrieve my BP from 2E, which was a big time loss and that finally prevented me from getting my picture taken in front of the plane. What happened is that they all led us to priority checkpoints for passport control, and I'm pretty sure it would have been faster to go to a regular Sky Priority checkpoint.
Also, as nearly every passenger in W and Y visited the J cabin and the cockpit, the aisle was packed for most of the trip.
On the whole, apart from boarding (even though there was only a single jetway opened) there was no real separation of J, W and Y fluxes.
Gérard Feldzer, a previous AF pilot, was commenting, and the pilot's father, a retired Concorde pilot, was in the cockpit.
Unfortunately, apart from wonderful views from the Alps and the Mediterranean, we couldn't see anything from the second half because of the thick cloud cover.
So, a globally positive experience, though maybe not very cost-effective...
Jan 8, 2017, 2:00 pm
#9
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Paris, France
Programs: AF/KL Flying Blue Platinum for life/Club2000 Ultimate, Accor ALL Diamond
Posts: 21,909
Thanks Goldorak for a great review. I flew the last of the four, the "Tour de France" this afternoon. I have a slightly more negative feeling, just slightly though, but probably because I bought myself a business class ticket.
Indeed, while I was flying from Nice, I had to retrieve my BP from 2E, which was a big time loss and that finally prevented me from getting my picture taken in front of the plane. What happened is that they all led us to priority checkpoints for passport control, and I'm pretty sure it would have been faster to go to a regular Sky Priority checkpoint.
Also, as nearly every passenger in W and Y visited the J cabin and the cockpit, the aisle was packed for most of the trip.
On the whole, apart from boarding (even though there was only a single jetway opened) there was no real separation of J, W and Y fluxes.
Gérard Feldzer, a previous AF pilot, was commenting, and the pilot's father, a retired Concorde pilot, was in the cockpit.
Unfortunately, apart from wonderful views from the Alps and the Mediterranean, we couldn't see anything from the second half because of the thick cloud cover.
So, a globally positive experience, though maybe not very cost-effective...
Indeed, while I was flying from Nice, I had to retrieve my BP from 2E, which was a big time loss and that finally prevented me from getting my picture taken in front of the plane. What happened is that they all led us to priority checkpoints for passport control, and I'm pretty sure it would have been faster to go to a regular Sky Priority checkpoint.
Also, as nearly every passenger in W and Y visited the J cabin and the cockpit, the aisle was packed for most of the trip.
On the whole, apart from boarding (even though there was only a single jetway opened) there was no real separation of J, W and Y fluxes.
Gérard Feldzer, a previous AF pilot, was commenting, and the pilot's father, a retired Concorde pilot, was in the cockpit.
Unfortunately, apart from wonderful views from the Alps and the Mediterranean, we couldn't see anything from the second half because of the thick cloud cover.
So, a globally positive experience, though maybe not very cost-effective...
Jan 8, 2017, 3:13 pm
#10
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Nice, France, EU
Programs: Flying Blue Platinum For Life, BA Bronze, LH FQTV
Posts: 114
