Dear visitors,

At February 29th 2004, I flew from Toulouse to Paris CDG. Here is my flight report.

05:30 in the morning. My alarm rings. I'm waking up in my hotel room in Blagnac. Today I will travel back home to Belgium. My bags were already packed since the previous evening. The only thing I still had to do was taking a shower. After that, I went downstairs for breakfast. It was still very quiet in the restaurant. I took a table near the window. The weather wasn't that fine : It was cloudy with some light rain.

Around 07:30, I took the airport shuttle and said goodbye
to the Ibis Hotel. A kind miss drove me to the entrance of
the departure hall, which was just a couple of minutes away from our hotel. I went to the Air France ticketing desk. A gentleman told us that the check-in would begin at 08:30, which means that there was almost a whole hour left for spotting. I went to the panoramic restaurant at the second floor, were you have a nice overview over the apron and the taxiway. I was able to nail a nice B735 from the French charter airline Air Méditerranée (F-GYAM).

Than it was time to check in. I was 18th in the queue. I received my boarding pass ... than looked at my seat number and ... YAHOOO ! A window seat ! My seat would be 03F.
I had to board before 10:00, so there was again plenty of time for spotting.
A whole bunch of English ski charters arrived, including this very nice Britannia/Thomson hybrid B762 (G-BRIG). Other British airlines were MyTravel (A320+A321), First Choice (A320), Monarch (B752) and the scheduled EasyJet
B737. Around 09:50 I went downstairs again for boarding. I passed the very strict security check (I even had to take off my watch, belt, mobile phone, etc.) before I was able to go to gate 07.

The plane that would take me to Paris CDG was F-GHQG, an Airbus A320 built in 1991. I could board the plane immediately. The stewardess welcomed me on board, and I took my window seat at the third row. With a small delay of 10 minutes, the plane was pushed back from the gate and began to roll over the taxiway. The aircraft had a load factor of 100%, which means that all 172 seats were full. While taxiing to the runway, the stewardess showed us the safety instructions. After reaching the holdingpoint from runway 33R, the aircraft immediately started its take-off run.
AF7795: Flight Report
The plane came off the ground quite early (it used about half the runway). After a smooth climb from about 15 minutes, we reached our cruising altitude.
We overflew snowy landscapes (in Toulouse the
snow was already gone). I made a lot of in-flight pictures. My seat was ideal, because the wing was
no obstacle for taking pictures as it was behind me. After 30 minutes we received our in-flight meal.
As it was just a domestic flight, we could choose between cold and hot drinks (I took an orange juice).
We also received some cookies which tasted like cheese. After all 172 passengers received their meal, the descend into Paris slowly began. We flew through
the clouds again. While on finals for runway 08R, we overflew the "Périphérique", the busy ringway around Paris.
Some second later we touched down smoothly. The stewardess told us via the microphone that it was just 1°C. We had to wait before we could cross runway 08L, because two Air France heavies (a B747 and an A340) were lined up for take-off. Afterwards we were cleared to cross the runway and we taxied to our gate at terminal 2F. I left the plane and picked up my luggage.

Then I went to the airport's railway station, and bought a ticket for the Thalys (high-speed train) to Brussels.
Before I was able to catch my train to Belgium, I still had two hours of spare time for some terminal spotting.
I searched a place, and found one between terminal 2D and 2F, with a nice view towards the taxiway. I was happy
to see and photograph a baby-Airbus A318 for the first time (F-GUGD), and some other nice birds like this Europe
Airpost B733 combi (F-GIXD).

Finally, around 08:00PM, I arrived back home in Hasselt, able to look back on a succesfull spotting trip to Toulouse
and a nice flight with Air France.
Click here to see my in-flight pictures.
Remark : Click "View full size" under each picture to receive the best quality.