Tuesday – October 25, 2011
The day finally arrived. We talked about it. We researched flights, hotels, restaurants. We planned. We made reservations. Today we’re going to Paris!! The time crawled slowly until three o’clock when the car service was supposed to drive us to JFK. Jim, the driver and owner of the company, pulled up in a brand new elegant Mercedes and he chatted through all the NYC traffic until we reached the airport.
We were picked up early to give ample time to get through, what Jeff calls, “security theater”. It took an hour and a half to wait in multiple lines, show our passports to five different security officers along the check-in path, and drop off our suitcases at a pile in the middle of the terminal. We thought we’d never see them again!
The final obstacle was an X-Ray machine in which we had to stand shoe-less with our legs apart and our hands in the air in a “hold-up” position. We found our gate and waited a short while to board. Our first clue regarding the airplane was the large number of blue-suited airline personnel who marched enmasse to the gate. When I joked about the French army was leaving our country, Jeff said that there were too many people to work on our plane, that they must be going home from flights which ended in New York.
An Air France Jet at JFK
A few minutes later, several Air France airport workers hauled out three large stands with mounted signs and then placed crowd-control barriers in front of the boarding area.
I went over to read the signs. “Holy Moly,” I said to myself when I saw the diagrams of the seating plans of the plane. There were TWO floors of seats on the plane! The plans looked like seating on a multi-tiered ferry boat. It turned out that the plane was one of Air France’s brand new Airbus A380s. I overheard someone say that there were 500 passengers aboard. Then I remembered reading in the NY Times recently that the planes had problems when they were delivered to Air France and required additional work to insure safety. I was getting a little nervous……
Double-Decker Seat Plan
According to Wikipedia, the Airbus A380 is a “double-deck, wide body four engine “Superjumbo” jet and is the largest passenger airliner in the world. It has 5,145 square feet of floor space and has seating for 525 people when configured for three-class seating OR up to 853 people in an all economy class configuration.
Sun Light Reflected on the Giant Wing
The plane was huge!! Our small section had ten seats across in 12 rows. Our seats overlooked one of the giant silver bat-shaped wings. Two of the best features of the Airbus were the reduced noise level in the cabin and the lack of G-force on take-off. When the plane took off it was quiet and comfortable and we couldn’t detect the increasing speed.
The Setting Sun
When we were in the air, the pilot invited everyone to walk around but, but as curious as I was, I didn’t get a chance. The worst feature of the plane was the very uncomfortable seat. As soon as we sat down we both said our seats were very hard. We agreed that a hard rigid seat is not recommended for a long distance overnight flight.
Purple Interior Lights Cast an Eerie Glow
End of travel saga: we made it to modern Charles de Gaulle Airport on time at 8:15 A.M. Paris time. We were exhausted from lack of sleep and achy from sitting on the hard seats for seven hours, but we were very happy to be in Paris.
The Airbus A380 on Land