Air France runs more than half a dozen lounges at its hub Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. More precisely, there are seven business class lounges across the terminals Air France operates from, and a single first class lounge.
After arriving at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport from Budapest – and a fairly time consuming immigration and transfer to Terminal 2E – I headed to the newest Air France lounge at the airport, the Air France Business Class Lounge (Salon) in the terminal’s Hall M.
Location, Opening Hours & Access
The lounge is located in the central part of the terminal, and is well signposted.
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Its entrance is sandwiched between a Dior and an Hermes store giving it a bit of an exclusive feel. Right past the entrance, there’s a long hallway (which takes the exclusive feel away) leading to the reception.
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The Air France Business Class Lounge in Terminal 2E Hall M can be, just like all other Air France business class lounges, accessed by the airline’s as well as its SkyTeam partners’ business and first class passengers, as well as status holders.
If you are flying with Air France in economy class but don’t have a status, you can also enter the lounge by paying 50 EUR at its reception.
Personally, I was able to get in thanks to my Delta Gold Medallion status which comes as a perk with my Japanese Delta AMEX Gold card.
As for the lounge’s opening hours, they’re quite limited – 5:30AM to 2:00PM.
Lounge Tour
Right past the reception, there was a map of the lounge detailing all its areas.
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To the right of it, there was an Air France customer service center where changes to tickets, and so on could be made – at least I guess so given that there was not a single person there during my visit.
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The center of the lounge was made up of three large seating areas mostly consisting of leather sofa chairs in a variety of arrangements.
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Separately, there was another seating area with a kids’ space in it – including PlayStations and children-sized chairs and tables. Across from it was a working area with a communal desk that featured seven seats.
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Going back to the very left side of the lounge, there was a dining area with dining tables and chairs as well as some counters. And, of course, the buffet – which I will write more about further down.
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Starting at the dining area and ending all the way on the other end of the lounge, there were floor-to-ceiling windows that offered views of some of the taxiways. Along the windows, there were several seating areas ideal for those that like to do some plane spotting while waiting for a flight.
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On the very right side of the lounge, there was a snack area that was more or less a “lite” version of the dining area on the other end, as well as a sleeping area with several daybeds and sleeping chairs.
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In addition to all of the above, there were also some magazine racks throughout the lounge and a private seating area at the very end of it. I wonder who uses it given that I would guess that the VVIPs use the first class lounge instead…
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The last thing I will mention here is the Clarins spa that offers free treatments to the visitors. And, while I didn’t get one of those, I took a quick shower in one of the adjacent shower rooms stocked with Clarins amenities.
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Food and Drinks
All of the food and drinks in the lounge could be found in the snack and the dining areas. I won’t separate the below by the areas since more or less everything that could be found in the snack area was also available in the main dining area.
As for drinks, there were canned soft drinks and beer, as well as bottled water and tomato juice. There was also a Tropicana dispenser with orange and apple juices.
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Then, there was a nicely presented selection of liquor and wine, as well as a coffee machine and a selection of teas.
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As for the food, given that I was there from fairly early in the morning until early afternoon, I had the chance to see both the breakfast and lunch offerings.
During breakfast time, there were some cold cuts, scrambled eggs, yoghurts and fruits, and a selection of breads.
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Later in the day, there was a nice selection of cold items including salads and vegetables, as well as gazpacho soup.
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There were also some hot dishes including chicken, cod steak, and mushroom risotto.
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Finally, there were some desserts including apple pie and cheese cake.
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Throughout the day, there were also some packaged snacks such as potato chips.
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Air France Business Class Lounge Paris CDG T2E Hall M Summary
Overall, I was quite impressed with the design and layout of the Air France in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport’s Terminal 2E Concourse M. The lounge did not feel crowded in the morning or later in the day, and there were plenty of different seating options.
For people that fancy such things, the free Clarins treatment is a nice bonus.
As for the food, while the scrambled eggs were terrible, the mushroom risotto during lunchtime made up for it.
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