Air France, International Airspace

Why shouldn't we review airplane food, as well?!

From Edinburgh to Istanbul, I had to negotiate two short , with a little stop in Charles de Gaulle.

The initial hop to Paris takes around 90 minutes, and allows only time for a little light snack. This took the form of this little array of goodies:


I have to say that the rose wine was very acceptable. Its light crispness coupled with a real sense of pink grapefruit gave this a really refreshing quality. If I were to be so bold, I might suggest that it would make an ideal breakfast wine, if you were ever looking for such a daring item. The pretzelly things were standard saltiness. The 'coffee drink' was so appalling that Air France should be ashamed on themselves for even bothering, particularly given that they seemed more than capable of producing a much better approximation of an acceptable beverage on my next flight. I decided to forego the biscuits.

Upon landing in the horror dimension that is Charles de Gaulle, I had the obligatory bus ride to the woefully poor terminal 2F. Here, you are given two culinary choices: bad sandwiches in the brightness; or bad sandwiches in the less bright. Having spotted a couple of friendly-faced fellow travellers testing merlot on comfy sofas, I turned to the dark side ;-)

I saved myself the agony of the woeful food, sticking to leisurely drained pints of adequate Heineken.

Basically, CdG is to be avoided, unless you're planning to bump in to people who will ensure your time there is enjoyably spent in easy banter and light boozing, or if economic conditions make your trip there pleasingly pecuniarily prudent.

The flight to Istanbul is around three hours, meaning you have a chance to play with an airplane food tray. My great guilty pleasure in this regard is the sense in which I feel compelled to eat dessert, a course with which I have an uneasy relationship, and with Air France this usually means something rich and chocolatey. Imagine my horror on being confronted with this:


Where's my blinkin' cakey treat?

Oh well, on with the game of identify the mystery attempts at food. The starter veggie thing, like a little caponata, I guess, was pretty good. The courgettes retained a little crunch, and there was flavour in evidence. The cous cous main had that flavour, too, although it probably shouldn't have bothered. The roll was bad, the cheese was good, but no butter, not even upon request! Sacre bleu! ;-)

The red wine was pretty ordinary, but they did get the coffee much better, and they finally produced a piece of fruitcake to ease my lack-of-dessert torment.


Overall, Air France aren't great. As a national carrier for a nation of gastronomes, they're a complete disgrace. People must sit in CdG scratching their heads thinking 'this is supposed to be France, non?' Their airplane food is OK, with their wine generally decent, but nothing can make up for the woeful airport experience.

I fly KLM on my return journey, so look forward to another slab of Dutch butter cake with my rubbish coffee, next week.

I drank: red and rose wine, lager, coffee, "coffee drink" approximation.

I ate: pretzels, caponata, cous cous, bread and cheese, fruit cake.

I wore: linen travelling suit.