Air France (pointless post)

[SaligoBay]

A subject guaranteed to get you a response in France, and NEVER a favourable one!

Booked my dad with Air France this time, 196 squids return.  No problem with Ryanair, but he has to sleep overnight at Stansted on the way back, because he gets there too late to get the next flight home.  

So when he phoned me from the UK this afternoon when he SHOULD have been phoning me from Charles de Gaulle, to say that his flight was cancelled, oooohhhh, you should have heard the neighbours.   I felt like I needed body armour - what were you thinking of, booking Air France, they're a national disgrace, etc etc etc. 

Anyway, he should right now be on a flight to Manchester, then later tonight Manchester-CDG, then they'll put him up in a hotel, and he SHOULD be in Montpellier at 9am tomorrow.

Confusingly, although his ticket is Air France, the first flight is FlyBe, and it was a technical fault.  And as he said, it's all a bit of a pain, but if a plane's going to break down, it's better that it does it on the ground than in the air.   How true.     

[GRT17]

well S.B. they were known as "Air Chance" back in the 70s and possibly they are still living up to their name!

We had a very young, exchange student age (15 / 16) who flew with them and when we took her back to Heathrow for her direct flight to Toulouse the check-in staff said they were overbooked and asked would she like to fly via Paris, stay the night in a Paris hotel and travel on to Toulouse the next day. At this point I put my foot down and surprise, surprise they found her a seat on the direct flight.

Hope your dad has good flights and arrives safely.

Gill

[Clarkkent]

I have just booked a round trip to Tokyo from Birmingham with Air France. The cost is £350 + taxes. I change at CGD from CityJet (which is a wholly-owned Irish subsidiary of Air France). I did this journey about 18 months ago and the Paris-Tokyo part of the journey was exemplary (bearing in mind I was travelling near-steerage). We arrived at Narita an hour early. On the return journey there was a dog in the cabin a couple of rows behind - it was very well behaved.

The worst part of the journey was CDG-BHX, with Flybe. The crew arrived 30 minutes late and things just went from bad to worse. We escaped from the arrivals area two hours late. I've never had a straightforward journey with Flybe and am pleased to see their partnership with Air France is ending.

I have since been to Tokyo with Scandinavian Airlines - Air France was easily better! One of the good things AF did was to have a self-serve buffet laid out near the galley so that one could just go and get a drink or a sandwich at any time. I had an interesting chat with a steward who came from Marmande.

Air France is OK. (But Emirates is better!)

[SaligoBay]

Isn't it funny, the different experiences!   We did Paris-Singapore with Air France, then Singapore-Sydney with Qantas.   Two friends (one English, one Aus) said they'd found Air France to be very good, and the Aussie said they were much better than Qantas.

Guess what - Air France were awful, including the surly staff.   Qantas were brilliant.

Tell you what, I LOVE those maps you get on long-haul flights to show you where you are, what speed you're doing, outside temperature, etc.   My enthusiasm for them remains greater than that of my son.    I love planes, the way they do that up-in-the-air thing, it's brilliant!  

[Will]

It's strange, isn't it, because most Frenchmen are very defensive of French institutions yet they moan about Air France. Just like the British seem to hate BA. I have no comlaints with either (unlike Lufthansa or American Airlines)

[Teamedup]

I had a rather nice flight with Air France in 1981 when I came over. That, ofcourse, was a long long time ago and I haven't used them since.

Over the years I have had so many friends an acquaintances who have had voyages ruined by this company that I would not touch them with a barge pole. Our sons CP teacher booked with them, in spite of me gently trying to tell her to use another company. She was going to see her daughter who was on a university course in England. Two days it took, in spite of her having booked a direct flight from Lyon to Heathrow. They flew her to Roissy and then onto Heathrow. At Roissy, strangely an english man came to her rescue, apparently he was very very helpful and as she told me all about it, she blushed profusely.

 

[SaligoBay]

Well, he's here, 27 hours after leaving home!   And as they say, "dinner in Manchester, breakfast in Paris, luggage who-knows-where".

They did deliver it to the house this afternoon, so no damage done. 

[Miki]

[quote]Well, he's here, 27 hours after leaving home! And as they say, "dinner in Manchester, breakfast in Paris, luggage who-knows-where". They did deliver it to the house this afternoon, so no damage don...[/quote]

Phileas Fogg had gone quite a way in 27 hours, so where has it all gone wrong !!

Your saying reminded me of an old saying "out in a Renault back in a taxi"

 

[letrangere]

It's strange, isn't it, because most Frenchmen are very defensive of French institutions yet they moan about Air France. Just like the British seem to hate BA. I have no comlaints with either

Will, so true about the Frenchmen.  I fly a lot and honestly believe it all comes down to which sector and which cabin you're in.  I much prefer AF on LHR/CDG, the meal in economy is better even than the meal in Club Europe on BA (this "service" being the world's biggest rip off in the skies), you can hear the captain throttling back the engines to allow people down the back time to eat!  But on other routes they can be iffy.  And BA on the 777 is pretty good to most places, especially on a sector where they have strong competition such as London/Dubai.  Oh I love Emirates, it's so multicultural, so easy going, it's so Dubai.  You also get to eat with real knives and forks (not plastic) in every class, something you can't even do on the ground at Heathrow! 

So pleased your dad arrived safely, SB.  Who was it said it wasn't about arriving it was the journey???  M

[SaligoBay]

<<Phileas Fogg had gone quite a way in 27 hours, so where has it all gone wrong !!>>

Welllllll, it started with a 3-hour drive to the airport and just carried on from there!

[SaligoBay]

So pleased your dad arrived safely, SB.  Who was it said it wasn't about arriving it was the journey???  M

Indeed.   And FlyBe provided the same level of service on the journey back yesterday!   Should have left Paris at 4, didn't leave till 7pm because they had to change an engine part. 

So he phoned from Birmingham (!!!!!!) when he should have been phoning from home.  About 9.30pm, and still another flight to go............

We'll try British Airways next time! 

[opas]

SB where is your dads starting point in the uk?   Has he writen to complain that his luggage went on a journey of its own.....my first ever flight years ago was to Marocco with a friend for a week, our luggage went to 3 different places before we got it back the day before our departure home, a letter to them gave us a free flight anywhere in the med<I chose Malta.

A flight last year to manchester resulted in my bag going to prague and after a few phone calls and a letter I received compensation that more than paid for my flight...a last minute web booking with air2000 Mrs O

 

[letrangere]

Mrs O, you are an exceptionally lucky woman for the IATA rules that most airlines apply are nothing like as generous.  Can't quote them offhand but basically you're initially entitled to a few essential items at the airline's expense such as a pair of clean knickers and a tooth brush.  If luggage doesn't appear next day I think you can claim for a bit more but not much.  I have a colleague who is still fighting Delta for the cost of a replacement suit that he had to buy when his bags didn't show up at their destination on a business trip 3 months ago.  M