Due to my flight with Air France departing at 07:10 I decided on a night in the Heathrow Travelodge (on bath road) for the night before as this at only £19 for the night was the cheapest hotel in the LHR area.
I also decided that for this trip as I would be leaving from and returning back to my second home (rather than my family home in weymouth) I would use public transport to get from Salisbury to Heathrow.
This included a bus across Salisbury to the train station then the train 1 hour up the line to Woking and then the rail air bus to the central bus station. This was not a bad journey but as the train was full I still prefer to drive and park (at T5’s business car park so as I can use the Pod system
)After a quick journey on the 105 bus I was at the travelodge and was quickly checked in to room 535 for the night.
Due to the 7:10 departure it was an early morning on Tuesday being up at 3:40 to get a bus over to LHR and then another around to T4 arriving there just after 5am
When I arrived at the sky team (AF/KL/DL/AZ) check in desks there was quite a Que. Forming with a lot of passengers (mainly american) attempting to squeeze their cabin bags in to the metal cage (amusing to watch and more on this later.) and most being forced to check their bags in.
After checking in my bag I proceeded to security which was quiet with only 2 lanes open but I was through the metal detector in minutes…
But then had to wait for my bag to appear from the x-ray machine as all of the belt space was taken up by people getting dressed again (why cant people get out of the way to do this?? )
Once through security I found myself a place by the window looking out on the southern runway and terminal 2 and checked V-Flyer to see when G-VRAY was due in as flights were landing from the windsor direction on the southern runway.
However air traffic decided that they would swap directions and land from the london end of the runway so I couldn't get the photo I wanted as Miss Sunshine caught me by surprise landing the other way.
A short while later I made my way to gate 21 (actually printed on my boarding pass!!) to wait for the flight to board.
The gate agents then made an announcement calling for passengers with more than one carry on bag to come forward and check one in to be placed in the hold. This somehow translated in french to EVERYBODY BUNDLE ON TO THE PLANE NOW. A few seconds later the gate disappeared behind a crowd of passengers (and oversized bags)
As boarding commenced I went with the crowd and was soon onboard in seat 16A with my bag under the seat in-front of me.
(now for the bit you are waiting for and probably expecting)
As the final (mainly American) pax boarded there was a very obvious lack of overhead locker space so for the mornings entertainment the crew and most pax had to shuffle all their bags around to get the last few in, this was probably not helped by the fact most of the pax in the back had stored their bags at the front on their way on.
We pushed back around 10 minutes late as the safety demo was given manually once in french and then again in english.
Take off was smooth straight in to the clouds over the m25.
The cabin service was very slow to get started and I was one of the last to be given a pan-au-chocolate and a glass of water (see picture).
By the time the crew had got to me the captain had already announced we were descending over France.
After a little bit of turbulence we started to drop back through the clouds.
Once we had eventually dropped out of the clouds we landed at CDG and then taxied (for what felt like most of the way across paris) to a gate at terminal 2E.
As soon as the wheels touched the floor half the pax on board thought that that was the time to get up and retrieve their luggage. (this didn't seem bother the crew) so by the time we had arrived at the gate there was already a que to get off the aircraft (and the seatbelt sign still on!)
I of course stayed in my seat until the door was opened.
Immigration was the usual for france and was very quick with a police officer in a glass box taking one glance at my passport and waving me through (at least in the US they talk to you!!)
Bags then took 5 mins to appear on the carousel and mine was one of the first off (result
)In summary not The Worst flight I have ever taken but not far from it. The crew seemed like they couldn't be bothered and the service was not at the usual standard of Air France it felt more like a low cost carrier flight.
The only good points were check-in and security (neither run by AF)
Chris H
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