Air France Economy Review – from London to Paris

Air France Economy Review

Flight from London Heathrow (LHR) to Charles De Gualle (CDG) Airport

Flight: AF1681

Airplane: Boeing 787-9 (Dreamliner)

Time of Departure: 09:45am (10:00am Actual)

Time of Arrival: 12:05pm (12:11pm Actual)

Distance: 216 Miles

Air France Economy Review

Next in my series of Airline reviews is a review of Air France’s economy service. I appreciate some of you in the UK are looking at the above flight and thinking, ‘why did Raj fly from London to Paris? Surely the Eurostar is easier?’ Yes, it normally is but as we needed a hire car to for our road trip it was easier and cheaper to fly into CDG, over taking the Eurostar and renting a car from central Paris.

I booked these flights in January of this year, as this trip had been pencilled in since October 2016, the booking was made directly through Air France and it was quite easy to do using my mobile phone. The tickets came to £70 each one-way and included a generous 23kg luggage allowance.

We checked in a bit earlier then we needed to for the flight around 07.45am, simply due to us wanting to make a couple of duty free purchases alongside fit in a couple of glasses of champagne to celebrate my friend Seetal’s birthday.

Check-in was quite swift, and a pleasant experience, no real issues with the Air France team on the ground, just the usual ignorant travellers! After security we headed to straight to Caviar House & Prunier for a bottle of bubbly and a toast to the birthday girl. We then proceed to our flight after a quick few duty free purchases.

On Board

Air France for this flight, use their new Boeing 787-9 aircraft, which is a greener, cleaner, quieter long-haul aircraft used on this short route for one flight a day – better than having it sit on the ground costing money. This was a three-class airplane; Business Class, Premium Economy and Economy.

We were sat in row 31, behind an emergency exit row and I was pleasantly surprised by both the seat width and pitch. In front of me was a large screen with lots of entertainment options. Unfortunately, this morning, I had made the rookie mistake of forgetting my headphones at home so couldn’t play around with all the features. My only bug bear about the screen was if the person in front reclines their seat, the angle of the screen can’t be adjusted like I’ve experienced on BA, Emirates, Qantas any several other airlines.

The cabin service was polite and managed a quick snack/drink run during this short flight, especially considering this was a full-flight they did a great job.

Conclusion

This was my first ever flight on both Air France and a Boeing 787-9, as an avid Airbus fan I’d be actually tempted to choose a flight on a Dreamliner over a Boeing. Despite sitting next to the wing, we could barely hear the engine. The Air France fit out of the plane meant that there was plenty of room available. I’d be keen on trying them out on a long-haul flight, even in economy class! They’ve got a great range of flights routes, especially as they are owned by the same company as Dutch airline KLM.