Bordeaux to Paris on a Battered CRJ-1000: My Hop! Review
You can read about my reasons for taking this flight here
Following a pleasant dash down from Birmingham on a Flybe Dash 8 Q400, I touched down on French soil with just over three hours to go until my Hop! hop up to Paris Orly. With my bag having been checked through to Paris Orly, and not needing to collect a new boarding pass, I was left with plenty of time. I thus decided to linger around and explore the sights and delights of the Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport’s landside area before returning to the airside portion of the terminal. Examining the airport’s layout, this features two detached terminals – the main terminal and the shed-like ‘Terminal Billi’, which serves EasyJet and Ryanair. Meanwhile, the main terminal is divided into the conjoined Hall A and Hall B, with the latter exclusively used by Air France and their subsidiaries, and the former by all other operators.
Wandering around the landside area of the main terminal, whilst failing to be architecturally spectacular or inspiring, this was far more modern and brighter than that of Birmingham Airport where I had started my journey. This featured high ceilings and plenty of open space, whilst everything seemed to be in a reasonably clean and tidy state that afternoon. Having a quick breather, I headed out into the boiling hot Aquitanian summer air before heading back into the terminal for lunch. Despite the presence of a number of more upmarket eateries, I decided to stop by at the local branch of Relay where I purchased the French equivalent of a British supermarket meal deal. This consisted of a sandwich, snack and drink for €6.90. Once I had polished this off, having completely explored the landside area and with this failing to offer any airside views, I decided to make my way back to the airside portion of the terminal.
Considering that Hall B Bordeaux serves a notable number of domestic flights, I was a little surprised to find the hall’s security checkpoint to be miniscule. Fortunately, being the only passenger there at the time, I was able to pass through sans probleme and was through to the airside area in absolutely no time.
However, upon making it to the airside area, I soon discovered that the airside portion of Hall B is very small and was most certainly not designed with any long waits in mind. There, little could be found other than a single café-bar and multiple vending machines. Fortunately, there were plenty of seats offered and a couple of charging stations. Most disappointingly, I found that airside views were near totally absent and photography is completely impossible thanks to the placement of a mesh blind over the terminal’s large windows. Furthermore, whilst the terminal’s landside area appeared to be clean and tidy, the airside portion of Hall B was absolutely filthy, with plenty of rubbish strewn about.
As time passed, with limited views of any aircraft outside, I had little to do but wait, surf the internet, and track the inbound jet that would take me to Orly as it made its journey down from Paris. Eventually at 1416, sleek looking Bombardier CRJ-1000EL F-HMLI pulled into a stand near the terminal eleven minutes behind schedule. Manufactured at Bombardier’s Mirabel factory near Montréal during the first half of 2011, in July that year the aircraft was handed over to Air France’s Brittany based subsidiary Brit Air. From Canada, the aircraft crossed the Atlantic to Brit Air’s home at Morlaix Airport, making mid-journey stops in St Johns and Keflavík. From March 2013, the aircraft began to operate under the HOP! brand umbrella and was soon repainted into the regional airline’s livery which it sports today. During the course of its eight year life in France prior to my flight, according to the AvHerald the aircraft had been involved in two notable incidents. The first occurred in January 2012 when the aircraft had to be towed off the runway after landing at Paris Orly due to issues with the nose gear steering. Meanwhile the second occurred in February 2017 when the First Officer fell unconscious shortly after the aircraft commenced its descent to Strasbourg. In the week prior to my flight the aircraft had undertaken 44 flights during which it had flown over 15,400 miles. This had taken the aircraft to Bordeaux, Brest, Comiso, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Paris Orly, Pau, Perpignan, Toulon, Toulouse and Venice.
After a quick toilet stop, I headed over to the area around Gate 25, which at that time was incredibly busy with literally no space to sit down. However, most there appeared to be waiting for the flight up to Paris CDG which was departing from the neighbouring gate. Thus, once boarding for this flight was complete, the terminal looked a little empty, with virtually all passengers bound for Orly or heading off on the delayed Hop! departure to Lille. Much to my surprise, an announcement was made regarding the commencement of boarding at 1434, less than twenty minutes after the flight had pulled into the gate. As was to be expected, Sky Priority members, those needing assistance and families with children were invited to board first. Within four minutes of boarding’s commencement, my boarding pass was scanned and I entered the jetway before taking the steps down to ground level.
Following a quick walk in the pleasant afternoon sunshine, I headed up the aircraft’s steps and into the small forward galley where I was greeted by the Purser, one of two flight attendants onboard the flight. From there I walked into the all-Economy cabin which consisted of 100 grey faux-leather seats, each featuring a red leather/faux-leather antimacassar on which Hop!’s exclamation mark motif was debossed. Upon reaching row twelve, I noticed two things – the aircraft has impressively large windows and the cabin appeared to be in a rather poor state.
Assuming that the quick turnaround had been the work of an efficient team of ground crew, instead it appeared that cleaning had been sacrificed as I noticed plenty of crumbs and other rubbish. This included parts of a cigarette in my seatback pocket and on the floor. Meanwhile, despite still being a relatively young jet, wear and tear was very much omnipresent in the area around my seat with plenty of visible marks and scratches. Overall, this ensured that my first impression of Hop! and this particular aircraft were far from fantastic. However, on the plus side, the seats were both soft and comfortable and the amount of legroom was certainly sufficient given the short flights that the aircraft usually undertakes. Turning to the seatback pocket, this featured a sick bag and a tattered copy of July 2019 version of Air France’s inflight magazine, entitled ‘Magazine’. Meanwhile, a dog-eared safety card could be found hiding in its own dedicated pocket.
As I had expected, the load that afternoon was rather light, with the flight no more than half full, thus leaving most single passengers like me with an empty seat next to them. Interestingly, the majority of passengers seemed to be families and perhaps less surprisingly, almost all onboard were French. Given the load, boarding was completed in around ten minutes and at 1445 the door was closed and the cabin boarding music came to an end. After five minutes of silence, the First Officer welcomed all aboard in French and English and gave some basic information regarding the flight, namely the flight time and weather both enroute and in Paris. This was immediately followed by the Purser’s welcome announcement and a safety demonstration that was performed along to a pre-recorded announcement. Mid-pushback the two General Electric CF34 engines powered up into life, filling the rear of the cabin with noise before the flaps were partially lowered in a surprisingly noisy manner. After a short pause whilst the tug was disconnected, at 1455, the jet aircraft commenced what seemed like a slow and cautious taxi to the end of Runway 23.
Sitting on the left hand side of the aircraft, as the aircraft headed to the runway, I was unable to get any good views of the airliners at the terminal, nor of the collection of modern business jets near the end of the runway. I was however offered views of the interesting collection of aircraft on the far side of the airfield. These aircraft included a pair of classic aircraft, a Caravelle and a Dassault Mercure in addition to an Airbus A340-500 in long term storage. Other aircraft included a couple of stored Avianca Airbus A330s, two yet-to-be-delivered Etihad Airbus A350-1000s, an Airbus A350 bound for (I think) French Bee and a couple of Lockheed C-130 Herculeses. Finally, the locally Zero G Airbus A310 was also visible, parked up between existing parabolic flights. After a six minute taxi, at 1501, without any holding the aircraft taxied onto the runway and paused momentarily before performing what seemed like a relatively gentle take off, soon heading upwards into the skies of southwest France.
Once our regional jet left the airport behind, the aircraft rose up over Bordeaux’s world famous vineyards as well as forests, soon banking right allowing temporary view of Arcachon Bay and the Atlantic before rolling out on a northeasterly heading. Soon enough, the aircraft passed through a thin layer of clouds bringing an end to the views of the region. Upon passing over the Gironde and rising up through 10,000 feet, the seatbelt signs were extinguished, and, seeing as I would likely not get the opportunity to visit later on during the flight, I decided to make a quick trip to the toilet. Just like most other Bombardier CRJs and the comparable Embraer 135/145, the toilet onboard the CRJ-1000 is located at the very rear of the cabin, and, upon entering I was a little surprised at how spacious this was – far more so than the aforementioned Embraers. This was stocked with the basics, although like the rest of the aircraft this appeared both dirty and battered, leaving me with far from a particularly good impression.
By the time I returned to my seat, the inflight service had commenced, with one crew member conducting this from the rear of the aircraft and the other from the front. As I waited, the town of Cognac appeared alongside its air base and a few minutes later the aircraft levelled off at 28,000 feet. Just over ten minutes after the service commenced, the flight attendant who was making their way forward from the rear of the aircraft reached my row and asked for my choice of drink. Feeling a little tired, yet with some distance to go until I could sleep, I opted for a black coffee which was soon handed to me in a Segafredo Zanetti branded cup, indicating the coffee company’s partnership with Air France. I was then offered a choice of sweet or salted biscuits and decided on the latter, receiving a small bag of salted breadsticks from the gloomy looking flight attendant. Given the coffee partnership, unsurprisingly this coffee tasted a little better than your typical inflight Americano. As I sipped this, only twelve minutes after reaching cruising altitude, the aircraft could be felt sinking back down to the ground after passing Poitiers and Tours.
After levelling off at 11,000 feet for five minutes, at 1645 the seatbelt signs were switched on and the jet made its way swiftly down through the thin yet bumpy layer of cloud, meanwhile a pre-recorded announcement was made in the cabin regarding the aircraft’s arrival. Once through the clouds, the semi-rural area to the south of Paris could be seen near Lieusaint before the aircraft slowly banked to the right in preparation for a landing on Orly’s Runway 26.
As the aircraft turned the flaps were noisily extended over Ozoir-la-Ferriere. A few moments later the historic Chateau Grosbois and its large estate came into view before the CRJ reached the green suburb of Villeneuve-la-Garenne. From there it seemed like the ground soon rose up to meet the jet and this soon passed over the airport’s perimeter fence before returning to the ground with a slight bump which was followed by some heavy braking.
In the usual manner, as the aircraft slowed and headed off the runway the Purser welcomed all onboard to Paris and thanked us for flying with Air France before music rang out through the cabin. After landing, the aircraft’s journey to a stand took it past a France-based Eastern Airways Embraer and a much larger Corsair Airbus A330 whilst inside a song by American band Vampire Weekend rang out through the cabin. As the aircraft taxied to the gate, I was impressed to receive a notification from the Air France app informing me that the luggage from the flight would be delivered to carousel four in the terminal. Following a relatively short taxi, the aircraft cautiously pulled into Stand S24 at Orly 1. Once the engines spooled down, the cabin stood up however it was some time before the cabin door was opened and passengers were able to disembark. Eventually, after waiting for the queue to die down a little I proceeded to the front of the aircraft and thanked the purser before disembarking and heading the short distance across the apron to the terminal.
After a brisk walk through the slightly old but pleasant enough terminal, I headed down the escalators and through the gates into the baggage claim hall. As I had been advised by the app, baggage was set to arrive on the carousel four, sharing this with a flight arriving from Calvi (although passengers arriving from Bordeaux were expected to receive their luggage first). Having had to wait some time for baggage to arrive after a flight to Orly from London City in May 2019, I did not expect the baggage to be spinning around upon entering the hall and indeed, the very small number of bags from the Bordeaux flight did not appear until around 1630. Worryingly, this selection did not include my large suitcase and so, with no staff members available in the collection hall, I headed out of the collection area and made my way towards the Air France baggage services office where a smorgasbord of understandably miserable looking passengers could be seen waiting. Fortunately, after several phone calls, my bag was located somewhere in Orly and I was advised to head to baggage carousel six where my bag would soon emerge. Ten minutes later, I happily strolled out of the baggage collection area for a second time, this time with my bag in tow and made the long-ish walk to Orly 4 where I planned to catch the bus into the centre.
Little did I know that the baggage fiasco would only be the tip of the iceberg of my post-arrival issues that afternoon. Having meticulously planned my route on Citymapper to Paris’ 17th Arrondissment several days prior to my arrival, needing to do this in the most cost effective way, I had decided to take the Orlybus to Denfert-Rochereau Station before catching the metro to Guy Moquet Station. After purchasing a ticket for €8.90 from one of the automated machines in the terminal, I headed out to the bus stop for this bus where a small number of passengers could be seen waiting. Despite holding the belief that I had just missed a bus, given the fact these are scheduled to depart every eleven minutes, I was not too downbeat. As time passed crowds of passengers arrived – a mix of heavy luggage lugging arriving passengers and airport workers desperate to get home, yet there was no bus. In fact, a forty minute wait was required before a bus turned up and, when it did it was announced that due to the Tour de France, the bus would terminate early at Cite Universitaire Station. Once allowed to board, passengers piled on, and despite being one of the first passengers to board, by the time I was inside, no seats were left and, so, like the majority of the passengers that afternoon, I was to spend the journey standing. Twenty minutes later, the bus took to the streets of Paris and we soon hit traffic which meant that the journey was conducted at a snail’s pace. Thanks to a combination of the summer heat, lack of air conditioning and the fact we were packed like sardines, the journey was incredibly uncomfortable and all spent the duration of this sweating. After around an hour and fifteen minutes (a journey that usually takes 35 minutes), the bus finally arrived and I could breathe fresh air once again. After traversing Paris on three different yet equally packed metro trains, I finally arrived at my new neighbourhood, a grand total of four hours after I had touched down in Paris Orly.
Summary
Whilst it may sound harsh, I was ultimately a little disappointed with my experience with Hop!. Having had positive experiences with mainline Air France both domestically and on short haul services between France and the UK, I had held the belief that my experience with Hop! would be just as good, however, this was not the case. The CRJ-1000 that had delivered me to Paris Orly, whilst comfortable, was rather filthy. Perhaps as this may have been the crew’s final flight of the day, I did not find either of the two crew members to be friendly or welcoming. Nevertheless, from an aviation enthusiast’s standpoint, I was rather pleased to catch a ride on the relatively rare CRJ-1000.
