Airliners-India.com

yash777 · Last edited by yash777 on Sat May 15, 2010 4:45 pm; edited 1 time in total

So after many posts requesting TRs on facebook I have finally decided to write a TR on my latest flight ORD-CDG-BOM on Air France.

Leg 1

Route: ORD-CDG

Equipment: Airbus A330-203 F-GZCM

Flight: AF 667

I booked this flight about 2 weeks before the flight and it was a pretty good deal at 1100$ two-way which was about 300$ cheaper than AI at the time I booked it. I left 4 hours before the departure time as I couldn’t wait anymore to go home after 9 months. Reached ORD at 2 pm and I had to wait at the airport for 3 hours as my flight was at 5.10 pm. Check in had already started for my flight at a very deserted ORD. I had checked in online so I was done in about 15 mins. My bags were overweight by about 5-6 kgs but that didn’t matter. I was given my boarding passes for both the flights and I was told to transfer from terminal 2E to 2C at CDG which turned out to be wrong afterwards.

Check in kiosk.

My final destination highlighted in this photo. Wink

Security check which I hate turned out to be a breeze. So I had to wait at my gate for almost 2.5 hrs but there was some beautiful American traffic around which kept me entertained for the rest of the time.

Traffic at ORD.

VT-ALR 'Meghalaya' Cool

One of my spotter friends was on his way to photograph my flight but that didn’t work out thanks to the runways which exceed the number of taxiways at BOM. Razz

Finally the aircraft arrived at around 3.45 pm carrying passengers from CDG. The aircraft was cleaned and boarding started 30 mins before the push-back and I was greeted with a ‘Namaste’ by the flight attendants which were 50 year old French women. We pushed back at 5.10 and took off from runway 10. The weather was overcast and somewhat foggy as always when I travel. The aircraft from outside was dirty as always and so was my window because of a slight drizzle which later froze as we reached cruise altitude making it worse. The food served was bland as I expected although it was an Indian meal. I had flown a brand new AY a333 a year back which was very comfortable and not very noisy.

Some pictures taken from inside.

Any guesses as to what this might be? :p

The weather was overcast throughout almost all of the flight but it did clear up above London which allowed to me spot the Thames and the London City airport from 38,000 ft. We landed after around 9.5 hours at an overcast CDG(FML). Some pictures from CDG.

The HOLY Concorde which left me Shocked

I saw an SQ a380 parked far away and an AF a380 as well.

The Economy Voyageur and the Business class on the a332.

I waited till all the people got out as I wanted cabin shots and to have a look at the flight deck of the only Scarebus I adore. I asked the flight attendant who allowed me to have a look at it after asking the pilots. I fired a few quick frames as I had a connecting flight and I had to transfer to a different terminal as well.

Many thanks to the pilots for this opportunity Very Happy

As I mentioned earlier I was told to transfer from 2E to 2C by the AF official back at ORD but I arrived at 2D which resulted in confusion. I took the bus for Terminal 2C which was quite a long drive and allowed me to fire some quick shots from inside.

Apologies for the quality as they were clicked from inside a bus

I eventually managed to reach 2E with the help of some CDG officials who didn’t know English as they went on blabbering S'il Vous Plaît 2E, 2E which I did understand, thanks to some French friends in Chicago Wink

Leg 2

Route: CDG-BOM

Equipment: Boeing 777-228/ER F-GSPC

Flight: AF 218.

My 2nd time on the 772ER having flown the same with CO while flying to EWR on the BOM-EWR route. The gate was full of desis flying back home and mostly gujjus. :p. I was seated on seat 28A directly above the majestic wing on the 777. The legroom wasn't very comfortable although I do look comfy in the picture below coz I was trying to fit the frame @ 35mm Confused

The PTV

Some traffic at CDG:

Love Vietnam's livery!

AF's heavy fleet:

We managed to leave after a slight delay and we were number 5 for takeoff. Some pictures:

Notice a 773 taking off.

Takeoff:

Vortices Very Happy

A KLM/Corsair 744 at cruise altitude when we were at 10,000.

The flight had a 95% load but luckily the 2 seats next to me were empty much to my relief as I’ve had old desis always snatching my window seat on previous flights Evil or Very Mad

. Some snacks were provided shortly after takeoff which consisted of the usual European crap. Dinner was good and spicy which was provided by the Oberoi group.(Sorry no food pictures as I was very hungry on both the legs Razz

) The hospitality was very good. Flight attendants were on hand throughout the flight providing refreshments every now and then. The most disappointing thing on this flight was the PTV which looked like a bad cable connection on a 1980 TV set.

The options were varied and they were the same as on the a332 although it didn’t interest me. I kept looking outside and I had carried my telephoto to see if I could get some air-to-air shots. I fell asleep eventually and woke up when we were above Tehran where we encountered a lot of turbulence which had some blokes worried Laughing

. I dozed off once again and woke up when we were above AMD ready to descend. The descent was quite slow and we circled 80 miles from BOM almost for half an hour or so with other traffic. We were eventually given clearance to descend to 5000 and we started going east to land on 27. The weather was clear and we landed smoothly on 27. I waited once again for all the people to leave to get some shots but I was denied access to the cockpit by the flight attendant(That bitch Mad

). There were no jetways because of on-going construction of the new terminal and I managed to get a few shots of the sweet 772ER.

GE90

Construction of the new terminal in progress:

Overall I was quite pleased with AF although some people had told me it’s a crap airline. Both the aircrafts were clean from INSIDE and the hospitality was good too. Looking forward to August when I fly them again and praying that I somehow get a KLM 744 before its too late. Sad

Camera used was a Canon Rebel XS and an 18-55 for most of the shots FYI and click on the pictures for the bigger versions.

Please do comment as I spent 2 hrs on editing the pictures and 1 hr on the text. Smile

I could have had many more TRs on exotic Russian aircrafts like the IL-86 and the Tu-154s but my camera was dead at that time. Sad

Au Revoir

Yash
_________________
Jetphotos Flickr gallery

aalokg · Member Joined: 21 Aug 2007 Posts: 158 Location: Mumbai

Nicely written Yash, the pictures are fantastic!

Regards,
Aalok

patkini · Member Joined: 27 Oct 2007 Posts: 313 Location: BOM

Hey yash,

Nice TR dude.....A couple of Qs:
1) Were there no announcements on the IFE during the ORD-CDG leg about terminals to go to for transfer within the next two hours?
2) At BOM, have all jet bridges been taken down due to the integrated X shaped terminal coming up?
3) Also, hows the inter terminal transfer service at CDG?

Eagerly awaiting your reply.

Regards,
Pats
_________________
You will never Fly Alone!

yash777 · Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 4:36 pm Post subject:

shekar · Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 5:03 pm Post subject:

Well written TR, Yash. Pictures look good Smile

_________________
blue skies :d

iflytb20

yash777

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 10:04 pm Post subject:

^^ I thought that was an A340 for a sec.

Great TR mate, you actually edited all the pics? Smile

That's called a quality report.

And by the way, is it rare for international arrivals at BOM to not use the jetway? If that is the case, you got lucky!

Varun
_________________
Yeah.

iflytb20 · Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 11:42 pm Post subject:

Nimish · Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 1:14 am Post subject:

Great report - and lovely pictures! The 332 looked quite comfy from the picture of the Y seats. Was the 777 in the 3-3-3 config or was it 3-4-3? Was the 777 any more or less comfy that the 332?
_________________
We miss you Nalini!

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 1:18 am Post subject:

yash777 · Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 8:04 am Post subject:

sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Nice crisp report with some good photo shoots.

Sri_Bom

jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

The_Goat · Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 7:18 pm Post subject:

Nice TR, yash!

yash777 · Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 9:55 pm Post subject:

jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

rutvij · Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 8:41 pm Post subject:

Great Pics to go along with the TR! Nice one. That wing looks really leaky.

saif.747 · Member Joined: 03 Jul 2010 Posts: 39

wonderful TR,lovely pix.. Very Happy