REVIEW | Air France Economy Class from Paris to Amsterdam

As Timothy and I felt like taking a weekend break to end the year, we decided to go for a weekend in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana.

After arriving in Paris on our HOP! flight from Ljubljana we arrived at the distant Terminal 2G, we had to make our way to Terminal 2F from where Air France operate their intra Schengen flights and our flight to Amsterdam would leave. After navigating the maze of corridors in 2G we made it onto the bus that took us to 2F.

Luckily in terminal 2F it was just a matter of climbing the right stairs to arrive up on the departures level. In the main terminal area you have a number of shops along the walkway in between the two piers of the terminal. Both piers have a food court in the middle offering a range of different options to eat.

I really like the design of the terminal 2F departures level, it’s light and airy, gives a sense of space and still looks a bit futuristic. There is also plenty of seating near the gates, with powerplugs and USB outlets at regular intervals under the seats.

Another nice gimmick they have at the gates is a screen with the information about the flight, cycling in between different slides talking about the weather at the destination, the languages spoken onboard, some information about the plane type and the seatmap.

Unfortunately the screen contained a major error in saying that we would be flying on a rare Airbus A318, while in fact the flight would be operated by a larger and more mundane A319.

Flight AF1140
From Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) 16:55 to Amsterdam (AMS) 18:20
Flight Time 1 hour and 10 minutes
Airbus A319 F-GRXK
Delivered to Air France in March 2006

Boarding was performed in groups and went pretty smoothly, the cabin sported a typical 3-3 configuration with leather seats. The seatpitch was really tight, much tighter than on the Embraer 170 we had from Ljubljana. The seat itself was comfortable, with an adjustable headrest, a coat hook and even USB charging points in the armrest.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful, we took off from Paris when there was still some light outside but the sun slowly began to set and we landed in a dark Schiphol.

The crew of this flight clearly loved their job and where all very friendly and enthusiastic, a big difference to the HOP! crews we had experienced before. The service onboard this short hop was rather simple. We all received a caramel muffin (which was delicious and quite filling actually) and could choose a drink for the fully stocked bar.

While this was only a short flight and thus difficult to judge Air France upon, I had the feeling that Air France did offer a good and solid offer in economy, much better than their regional arm Hop!. To be sure I should fly them again, preferably on a longer flight. Their Dutch counterpart KLM however still outshines them in my opinion, but in all fairness some more flights on both airlines are required to make a thorough judgement.