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Air France City Jet – Paris-CDG to Florence-FLR – AFR # 5042
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Air France City Jet – Paris-CDG to Florence-FLR – AFR # 5042

by jeffreyJune 9, 2014
This entry is part [part not set] of 10 in the series France/Italy

After exploring Paris in the snow, and getting all engaged up, it was time to bid adieu to Paris and hop our short commuter flight from Paris-CDG to Italy’s famed town of Florence-FLR (but be careful, I’ve heard at least half the flights actually land in Firenze, not Florence…yikes!).

CHECK-IN

After having a bit of bad weather, all of the public transit and flights were finally back up and running smoothly. We took the RER from the city out to Charles de Gaulle-Roissy airport. Somewhat annoyingly, they don’t announce the gate or terminal you’ll be leaving from until just a few hours before departure, so we ended up having to wait for a bit in the main terminal area. Finally, it was announced that we’d be departing from 2G, and the “G” likely stands for “Going to take a bus a long damn way.” ALL other terminals (1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, 2E, 2F and 3) are easily connected by the CDGVAL train, with the exception of terminal 2G … which requires a ~5 minute bus ride from 2F to 2G (not including the wait for the bus, which could be 25+ mins).

The good thing about being in the terminal in BFE is that you’ll be relatively alone and check-in, baggage check and security will be a breeze; CDG’s terminal 2G didn’t disappoint in this regard. We made our way through security to the terminal:

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The terminal was perfectly fine and had plenty of space.

AIR FRANCE LOUNGE – TERMINAL 2G

We made our way to Terminal 2G’s one and only Air France lounge.

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Terminal 2G: All that you might expect:  French businessmen and croissants

Although I was on vacation and more than happy to have a free Bloody Mary or cold beer, this particular Air France lounge wasn’t try to serve anything fun or exciting.

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Bienvenue à Air France: what’ll it be? You can choose from an espresso or a croissant.

All-in-all, this was a perfectly fine place to get some breakfast, connect to WiFi and pass some time before a flight. Our only (serious) complaint was that it was totally packed. We happened to luck into 2 seats side-by-side, but this was quite a popular place at 11am on a Thursday morning. Our flight was eventually called and we made our way down to the gates:

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CDG Terminal 2G Boarding Area

You’ll notice that all gates have stairs leading downwards–there will be no fancy jet bridges at Terminal 2G.

AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 5024 – PARIS-CDG TO FLORENCE-FLR

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Beautiful blue sunny skies; looks like a great day for flying

If you have business class seats on Air France’s City Jet, don’t hold your breath looking for a fancy cabin. The configuration is just an empty seat in the middle and, voilà:  business class!

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City Jet Avro RJ85

City Jet/Air France Avro RJ85 Seating Chart with Business Class

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We settled into our extremely luxurious and spacious business class seats:

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Check out that pitch, fit for a king…*queen

With everyone boarded, we began our taxi to the runway for an on-time departure.

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Take off down runway 26R


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On take-off, we had some great views of Charles de Gaulle Airport and Paris:

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Paris–Le Bourget Airport – LBG – Home of the Paris Air Show

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Paris from above

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La Grande Arche De La Defense

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Once we reached altitude, the flight attendants came through the cabin with moist towelettes before beginning the meal service.

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They then came around for drink orders and served us our starter, or at least what we thought was just our starter: a fruit tray, a piece of bread with a fishy type sauce with caviar and another spread with tomatoes, 2 mini brownies and another piece of dessert chocolate.

Lunch

A quick snack

From looking over our shoulders, it appeared that most other passengers in business class and in economy were being served a proper lunch sandwich: roast beef and cheese on a baguette. I guess they only thought we needed a starter? Either way, the food was fine, plenty for a light snack but far from a solid lunch portion.

About 60 mins into the flight, we were right over the Alps, making for some great photo opportunities:

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Possibly Mont Blanc near the France-Italy-Switzerland border?

Before long, we had entered Tuscany, where the sun is always shining!

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Nice break from all of the snow in Paris!

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Rolling Italian hills

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Touchdown! Florence, Italy.

We deplaned quickly and headed to baggage claim. Fortunately, we fared better than these people and collected our bags in no time.

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BOTTOM LINE: Air France’s City Jet was a perfectly fine carrier to fly for a short regional Europe flight. While the “business class” was little more than a joke, the snack was decent and the flight got us to where we needed to go on time. The cabin was a bit dirty, but nothing shocking for regional jet service.

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