- Ick, what an absolutely delightful,
yucky morning here in Paris.
Should we go somewhere like a bit more sunny?
- Hello!
- So I'm flying with an airline today
called Air Caraibes, who are
a French West Indies airline.
Today I'm taking a ride on the Airbus A350
in their business class.
Which is also called Madras class,
which sounds pretty spicy to me.
First stop today was the lounge.
Air Caraibes use the iCare lounge,
which, despite the name,
is nothing to do with having
your eyes tested.
The lounge isn't that bad,
but the food selection wasn't the best.
They did have coffee though,
which was all I needed this morning.
Now, Air Caraibes operates
mostly in the French West Indies.
They've got a fleet of ATRs doing
regional flights over there,
but they also do a couple of A350s they have.
Which fly from Martinique, and Guadeloupe
over to Paris Orly.
And it's one of those I'm on today over to a place called
Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadalupe in the French West Indies.
All right, time to head to the gate
and head over to the Air Caraibes A350
to take me over to Guadeloupe.
My ride today then was this Airbus A350-1000,
which was the first built A350-1000 and was used by
Airbus as a demo aircraft until delivery
to Air Caraibes a year ago.
Air Caraibes offer a reverse boarding process
where the economy passengers boarding first
and business class right at the end.
Like many places right now,
Guadeloupe needs you to have
a COVID test within 72 hours of departure.
As always, this was a really simple process
and I simply showed my results
to the agent at boarding who checked them
and let me straight through.
Bonjour.
So I'm on board the Air Caraibes A350
then heading to Guadeloupe
and it's quite a nice plane, actually.
Got to love the A350's windows.
Has massive, huge windows.
This is a 1000 actually as well.
It's quite a nice business class seat. 2,2,2 config,
not a seat that I'm actually seeing before on anything else.
So I'm looking forward to it and look around this seat
and seeing what it does.
But it seems pretty nice so far, at least.
So the leg room's not great.
The seats are angled in quite a funny way. I mean,
at the moment there's nobody at the side of me,
but I feel like I'll be playing footsie with them
if there ever was.
For the moment, just me though
and I think we're about to shut the doors.
So fingers crossed.
I think that's boarding complete.
Yay!
(talking in French)
Our route today then took us southwest
out of Paris across the Bay of Biscay
to the Atlantic ocean.
We crossed the Azores
and headed straight towards Guadeloupe.
Flight time today was 8 hours and 7 minutes
at a cruising altitude of 37,000 and 39,000 feet.
So then airborne out of Paris, quite a comfortable seat.
Leg room isn't necessarily the best.
And it's really weird as well,
because it's sort of on this side,
you lift your legs up.
On the aisle seat, your legs go down.
It's a bit weird.
Not quite sure how that's going to work with a bed,
but we'll see, it's okay. 2,2,2 config.
We've got the controls for the seat just here,
pop it into relax mode, now we relax.
We've got power, headphone socket, USB.
Decent have headphones, actually.
It's not focusing on that, is it?
A350, it says Air Caraibes.
That's a big TV screen.
You know what? Let me show you.
Tail camera on the plane.
I do love a nice tail camera.
First time on the A350.
Such a beautiful aircraft.
I'm going to put the bed down, have a relax for a bit.
Maybe get a bit of work done on the way
over to the Caribbean.
(relaxing music continues)
So then, the appetizer, it's some sort of sushi,
by the looks of it.
I like sushi.
I'm not sure I'll be able to eat it with chopsticks though.
It's quite nice.
Rum punch.
Now that is nice.
And so I've gone for the fish.
Some prawns and scallops and things.
Start with this starter.
Très bien.
And the main as well.
This is delicious.
You know, in a time when a lot of airlines
are cutting back on their costs
when it comes to meals,
it's really nice to see Air Caraibes
haven't really cut back on anything.
It's a nice full meal service.
So it just goes to show that airlines can still provide
a really decent service even after the COVID situation
and they can do it safely.
You know, we've got sealed cutlery,
we've got food with lids on and stuff,
but he's still a good service.
Just really goes to prove that it can still provide
a really good service in business class and do it safely.
So I'm going to try out the flat bed I think.
Let's pop it into night mode.
Now fortunately, Madras class comes with
a really nice pilau to rest my head in.
And also just in case it gets a little bit jal-frezing on
the flight, there's a duvet as well.
Now I have to say the flat bed isn't the most comfortable.
It's very bumpy and lumpy.
And there isn't a great deal of leg room.
Although I can lay almost flat down on it.
It wouldn't be bad on an overnight flight
for especially like on my way back from the Caribbean,
like later on this week.
I'm going to be flying on the same plane overnight.
So it's going to be nice actually
to get a decent night's sleep.
Hopefully.
Shoulder room isn't the best, but it's a 2, 2, 2.
So it's kind of what you expect.
And if you're traveling as a couple,
then it's nice that you can actually fly
with your traveling companion
at the side of you.
All of Air Caraibes A350's have wifi on board.
It works well, but it's pretty pricey
and I ended up paying for the $29 200 MB package,
which lasted about half the flight,
followed by the extra $17 for the remainder of the flight.
Amenity kit.
I mean, it's made out of like wetsuit material,
sort of weird.
toothbrush, what the hell are those? I dunno.
I've no idea, some weird shape things.
Plastic bag,
earbuds,
and a pair of socks, and another one.
Nice Air Caraibes comb.
If you're enjoying this video,
don't forget to check out my video,
flying the world's best business class,
Qatar Airways QSuites. The link's on the screen now.
Despite the 8 hour flight, we were in fact still in France.
A fact that I was reminded of
by seeing this Air France A320
that operates flights in the West Indies.
Our flight to Guadeloupe worked out at £989
each way, or about $1200 US dollars.
This works out at a cost per mile of 24 pence.
Overall, I was pretty pleased with Air Caraibes.
The seat wasn't the best
but the service more than made up for it,
and the food was incredible
compared to the reduced pickings many airlines
are offering right now in the name of COVID.
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So then here in Guadaloupe.
Guadeloupe is the beginning of my little adventure
here in the Caribbean
so make sure you hit that subscribe button
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so you don't miss a single one of the videos.
I've got some amazing stuff coming up here
and you're not going to want to miss it.
In the meantime, as always,
thanks so much for watching.
Take care and I'll see you next time.