Air France Inaugural DEN-CDG 789

Air France Denver-Paris inaugural 789

We left the Centurion Lounge at around T-70, took the train back to the A concourse, arriving at Gate A37 to find inaugural festivities underway, with airline execs and local politicians.  Blah, blah, blah.

Macarons for all at the gate.

Our beautiful 789.

Gate lice out in droves this afternoon, blocking the entire walkway. 

OK, so new airline, new staff, new plane and I'm inclined to cut them some slack, but boarding was pretty chaotic.  More like a dozen chickens running around wiith their heads cut off.  And then there was the annoying pre-boards of handicaps, famillies with children and the endless stream of those (supposedly) needing extra time.

On board, a pleasant looking 30 seat 1-2-1 Business Class cabiin.

I know that it's not First Class but this seat and conifguration was not that great.  OK when first sit but in action, the flaws leap out and smack you in the face.  Angled TV screen that swings out.  Then in recline, the seat moves towards the TV screen, way too close for a lot of folks.  The tray is laughably tiny.  One simply cannot use a laptop and watch TV in recline mode.  Not even close to the well designed United Polaris seat.

Inaugural flight socks.

Good thing I like blue as there's a whole lot of blue in the amenity kits.

Today's menu, impressive for Business Class.

Even the ground staff paused to watch our 789.

Our gate neighbor Lufthansa pushing at the same time.

Once in the air, service was by cart.  But what's with the miniscule tray? 

But with a comically large table cloth by comparison.   My FB Gold status was recognized by both the Purser, who stopped by welcome me back, and our FA who asked me for my main dinner choice before others.

There was no pre-dinner drink or cocktail service.  The crew just went right to dinner. All service was by cart.  While personable, our FA was annoyingly stingy with the pours.   This was my entire first "glass of champagne".  Seriously, I'm not driving tonight.  

And no proactive refills as I had to flag him down twice.  I later gave up and just walked up to the galley for more.  That's when he finally got the message and poured me a real glass.   

 Our loaded dinner tray, indeed so loaded that I had to move some items to my seat counter to make it work comfortably.  

The pan fried tuna starter was really good, with wasabi mayo and mango salsa.

My main... no idea why he couldn't take off the foil.

Without the foil, the chicken supreme was excellent.  With chorizo emulsion, espellete chili pepper, potato purée with garliic and confit bell pepper.

Once the dressing had soaked in, the salad was tasty.

The cheese tray was simple but good.  And a glass of porto.

No mattress pad or PJs, but the fully reclined seat was reasonably comfortable and I slept for a good 4 hours.  About 60 minutes out, a simple continental breakfast. The croissant and fruit were good, the yogurt was simply awful.  Does anyone really like this crap or is it something cheap to fill the tray?

Impressive Christofle flatware.  

Almost here.

While we landed only 20 minutes later, we had to wait another 30 minutes as our gate was occupied... some passenger issue.   Finally, we're pulling up to our gate.

And yes indeed, our BMW 7 series limo is waiting for us.   So excited to be here for our 10 hour (well make that only 9 hours now) La Première experience... and what an experience it was.