Arriving at 2G

I alight with the two other passengers at CDG 2G and head one floor up. Here too, the terminal is very quiet and there are hardly any passengers about.

Le Salon Air France at 2G

There are three lounge agents at reception, which seems quite a lot considering that the lounge is more or less deserted. Including myself, there are five passengers.

Boarding

Boarding for the flight starts at 17:05. On my way out of the lounge I check the departures screen. There are only five more departures from 2G this evening, with a gap of two hours between my flight to Basel and the next departure.

Today‘s flight is operated by an Embraer E 170, which is simply a very unpleasant and uncomfortable little aircraft.

The Cabin

Seat pitch on row 1 is much tighter on the E 170 compared to the larger E 190 (see here). There‘s also no extra storage area at the front of the cabin, so the overhead bins tend to get stuffed very full.

Initially, there are only three passengers in the forward cabin. However, in order to balance the aircraft, four passengers sitting in the rear of the plane are brought to the front, so that eventually, only the seat next to me stays empty.

The Service & Crew

There are two friendly cabin crew on this flight. Once the doors close, they hand out small bottles of still water.

Departures are to the east this evening, which means we have to make a rather long taxi from the east end of the airport, where 2G is located, to the runway threshold at the opposite end. However, this means that once we‘re airborne we‘ll be able to fly a much more direct routing without having to first fly around Paris. As a result, the flight time is only forty minutes.

The Snack

For a snack I have the salted caramel sablés and a coffee with cream. And very soon after, we‘re already descending into Basel.

Arrival & Closing Remarks

We land in Basel on time. There doesn‘t seem to be anything much going on here either, so that I only have to wait seven minutes to pick my suitcase off the luggage belt.

This brings to an end my trip to Dubai. It‘s been a long week. Once again, Air France has impressed me by their consistent service delivery and their attention to detail in presenting their brand identity.

La Première, as always, was a delight and an experience. The return in Business Class was relaxed and comfortable. The catering ex Dubai was a bit of a let down. As previously mentioned though, this is usually the case on flights leaving Dubai, regardless of airline or cabin class.