xcitation
I seem to remember that the flight plan for AF447 did not list Paris as it`s final destination but something closer along the way (toulouse?) and Paris as an alternate. The logic, so it was said, would be that filing Paris would have left them with less than the allowed contingency fuel and that through this trick, they could safely go with the amount of fuel on board and decide closer to French shores to use the contingency fuel to go to Paris.
Can anyone confirm that that was the case? And if so, what would that say about their ability to deviate around the cell and still make it to Paris. A refuelling stop in Toulouse would certainly be an embarrassment.