air france, any good?

[pilotho]

i am going to travel on air france from MAN to HKG this summer, however i have heard mixed opinion on AF's long haul flights.

anybody been on them, any views?

[CherokeeDriver]

Not impressed with them at all.

[Cyrano]

I found their long-haul Y class was fine. It's economy - it's not going to be luxurious - but they had good IFE and decent food and the plane (a 77W) was relatively new. Downsides were the embarrassingly neanderthal Cityjet 146 that operates the connecting AF services from Dublin to CDG (don't know what they use for MAN-CDG), and the occasionally frustrating inter-terminal transfer at CDG (fine if you're used to it or if you're not in a hurry). But that's just a sample of one. Before I head off on a new carrier I tend to check out the passenger opinions at www.airlinequality.com which - though subjective - give me a better idea of the pros and cons.

[radeng]

Last travelled them in Business Class ten years ago and they were superb. But what they are like in Y these days, I couldn't say.......

[bealine]

Just been over to www.airlinequality.com

As you say, it is subjective and I was disappointed at the long gaps between customer viewpoints being added! I was, of course, interested at how Gatwick is perceived and, in particular, BA at Gatwick, but the long gaps between postings mean that you can't easily tell if we're improving our standards or getting worse!

Perhaps if we all promote their site, the opinions will flood in - as they do here!

........sorry to take this off-topic radeng, but my experiences of the Mounseers' Airline - Air Chance - are hopelessly out of date!

BANG! Back On Topic Again!

[5711N0205W]

Flew 2 10 hour plus sectors with them last month in the back, also did the same last October, most recent trip 1 x A340-300 and 1 x 744.
The A340 had seat back IFE, the 744 over aisle CRT's.
I find the 744 more comfortable in economy but the 340 is bearable.
Catering was adequate on all flights.
You get what you pay for, flying is not a glamorous pursuit but my experiences with AF have not given me any cause for concern.
As I'm currently doing around 8 to 10 LH flights a year I invested in a pair of cheap Noise Cancelling headphones with the idea of going to more expensive ones if these were no good. I'm quite happy to stick with these, they do make a huge difference. To avoid posting commercial links search for "Noise Cancelling Headphones" on eBay, the ones with the £24.95 buy it now price are the ones I chose.
The airline aside it is quite likely you will be transiting CDG terminal 2 complex, it's ok for short stopovers but for any length of time not a great place....

[firemac]

Used to fly with them often Busi. Class, Paris-Beijing on B777. Service was fine apart from food poisoning on one notable return but I guess that's just unlucky.

Always flew out of CDG so no transit probs but I know from other's experiences that AF are hopelessly optimistic about their connection timings. Most colleagues missed their LH connections at CDG when flying from MAN or LHR. Used to fly weekly MAN-CDG & almost every Monday morning without fail, there was a gang of AF ground staff waiting in jetway to run passemgers to LH connections - often unsuccessfully as it would turn out.....

[pilotho]

hmm, after reading that the connection times are optimistic, i wonder if 1:15 would be enough to get from 2F to 2C

i only had 50mins flying with LX last year, that seemed fine, except swiss security thought that my scanner was a remote detonator!!

[firemac]

"hmm, after reading that the connection times are optimistic, i wonder if 1:15 would be enough to get from 2F to 2C"

Depends on day & time of your flight. The early a.m. flights out of MAN were almost always, nearly without fail, delayed; anything from 15 mins to 1 hr+. hence arrival time was equally delayed. Bearing in mind that CDG is like most other European airports with LH's tending to arrive early a.m., it wasn't surprising. 1:15 seems tight for AF, especially if it's a morning connection.
However, I've not flown that sector for some time now so others with more current experience could give you better advice.
For what it's worth, I reckon 1:15 is pretty tight anywhere. I've just booked LH to BK via KL and a 1:30 connection time with MAS was not recommended - even though KLIA is one of the easiest, most efficient airports to get around in & I've never known th MAS LHR-KL flight to be late in, even if delayed departure.

[SXB]

Out of all the large European flag carriers I think AF are the worse. The quality of the cabin staff tends to be a lottery, sometimes they are fine and other times their behaviour is atrocious, their language skills also vary enormously (like BA) Worse of all if you travel AF you are likely to be transiting CDG which is, without doubt, the toilet of all european airports.

[Crepello]

I've no experience in Y, but am reasonably happy with J. All depends on the aircraft... the 773s are pretty good, 772s pretty dated. But the catering's consistently excellent.

Linguistically, I'll normally do pleasantries and food orders in french, but consistently embarass myself when it comes to the wines, after which we'll banter 'en anglais' - I guess GCSE has it's limits. But the crews seem professional - if a tad boring: They're always in bed before the folks from from other carriers at the Lagos Sheraton!

Have to say, I enjoy the fact that when the meal service is over, the crew take a break, set up tables in the galley and have their meal break - could almost be a pavement cafe near La Defense. :) Best of all, it gives me free passage to the 'help yourself' bar... which is possibly why I sleep well in those - dated but comfortable - seats!!

[paulc]

Flew AF last October CDG-PEK and return. Chaos at CDG when 773 went tech (3 hour delay) but onboard the service & food was fine. Return on A330 was equally fine but would agree that CDG transfers can take longer than expected.

[apaddyinuk]

The problem with www.airlinequality.com is that it is mainly used by disgruntled passengers to voice their single and unique gripe with a company and does not reflect the actual standard or service of an airline. Ok, some airlines are consistently poor scoring but others have such ranging opinions!

[Cyrano]

The problem with www.airlinequality.com is that it is mainly used by disgruntled passengers to voice their single and unique gripe with a company and does not reflect the actual standard or service of an airline. Ok, some airlines are consistently poor scoring but others have such ranging opinions!
...whereas this thread is a masterpiece of objectivity and survey design? :cool:
Yeah, right...

I agree that you can't learn much from a single post on airlinequality.com, but if there are twenty posts on an airline and a dozen of them all talk about, for example, the particularly cramped seats, you can get something of an idea.

[jammydonut]

Four flights and they lost all our luggage on three of them and very indifferent in locating it. If you want to register any complaints you will find it virtually impossible to find a contact by mail or phone.:*

[PAXboy]

Thread Drift
I had not heard of the web site mentioned above, so I wandered over. I picked the LH carrier that I use the most and ... did not recognise the carrier that they were speaking about. All seemed very unpleasant and, if you look through the listings, you can see that it is mainly the bad comments about all the airlines. Then you realise that they are ALL bad - at one time or another. But then, that is both common and general knowledge. A poor site that I do not imagine I shall be visiting again.

[apaddyinuk]

...whereas this thread is a masterpiece of objectivity and survey design? :cool:
Yeah, right...
I agree that you can't learn much from a single post on airlinequality.com, but if there are twenty posts on an airline and a dozen of them all talk about, for example, the particularly cramped seats, you can get something of an idea.

Hehehe...well you are right!!! But at least here you still get people arguing pro's and con's which are rare in airlinequality.com

[OFBSLF]

Last month I flew Air France round trip from BOS to CDG. Aircraft was an A340 and I was in economy. The seat pitch was rather tight (I'm 5' 9" tall). The aircraft had a seatback inflight entertainment -- I didn't use it except to monitor our location and expected arrival time.

The in-flight service was fine. The food was ok (I've had better and I've had worse). The return trip was 1 hour late due to equipment problems. I didn't check any baggage, so I can't comment on the baggage service.

CDG was a mess -- we were taken to and from the planes on relatively long bus rides. In addition, there were long lines at CDG for check-in and passport control. But much of that is not Air France's fault...

[surely not]

Flew LHR-CDG-DKR returned DKR-CDG-LHR with AF in late 2004. The a/c was comfortable, clean and tidy. Nothing flamboyant about the cabin and the crews were fine without being exceptional on all 4 sectors.

Where they surprised me considering the general panning they get from a lot of people was in their ground handling.

On the way out the flight ex LHR was delayed quite badly and the connection time on landing at CDG was down to 35 mins; by the time we got onto the remote stand it was down to 25 mins. At the bottom of the steps was a beautiful young Air France girl who had my name on a piece of paper. Alas she only wanted me to catch my flight ;) Into a minibus and off to the onward flight. I explained that my bag MUST make the connection as I was travelling to a remote part of Senegal and wouldn't be able to come back to Dakar just to collect the bag. She immediately started to speak with people, and lo and behold when I arrived in Dakar it was the 3rd bag on the belt.

So top marks so far to Air France :ok:

On the return the connection ex CDG was about 2 hours. On arrival LHR there were about 6 of us left at the carousel waitingfor our bags. It was just dawning on us that our bags were not going to appear when the Air France baggage staff made an announcement asking waiting pax to go to their desk. I was ready to be stroppy but had all my plans blown away when the agent informed me they had the bag in CDG, it had missed the flight due to a problem with transfer bag security screening, told me which flight it would be arriving on, and asked when would be convenient to deliver it me.

The bag arrived at my home within 10 minutes of the time they promised.
Great product recovery guys :ok: :ok:

Would I fly with Air France again? Definitely

[TG345]

Hehehe...well you are right!!! But at least here you still get people arguing pro's and con's which are rare in airlinequality.com
They also choose which submissions to post on the site (i.e. censor them), so there is not the totally free exchange of views which one enjoys on other sites.

[reverserunlocked]

Flew BEY-CDG in a 772 last year, AF being the only European carrier that lays on a widebody for this particular flight. With BA, LH and KLM you'll get shoehorned into an A320 or a 737, which is a bit of a waste of money if you've shelled out for biz.

Catering was excellent, the crew couldn't be faulted and I was very happy with the overall experience. CDG is, as others have pointed out, a funny old place but that's hardly AF's fault.

[CARR30]

http://www.airlinequality.com/ has some sort of agenda. Contributions are not automatically posted like they are here and they are very selective about what they do post. They are especially keen to publish gripes about the locosts especially Ryanair, and plaudits for the national carriers.
I've tried to balance this, but that they don't seem to publish anything that contradicts their bias.
IMO the site needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

My last two long hauls have been with Virgin Atlantic and Air France and I'd certainly pick AF as the best of the two. Flew MAN-CDG-NRT and had no problems at all with schedules, they were tight and of course the check in agents at MAN give you the wrong gate for arrival at CDG (wrong terminal too as it turned out) but if you've the presence of mind to follow the fairly confusing terminal signage you can find your way easily enough. On board the seating was comfortable enough (777 Y class) and the service and food excellent (remember to ask for champagne if you want it, they won't offer it). The cabin crew were very attentive and patient with a predominantly elderly, japanese passenger load and the "help yourself" bar and snack service was excellent. IFE was good too, with seatback not quite on demand movies etc. All in all everything about the flight told me that everyone knew what they were doing and were actually happy to be doing it, something that perhaps VS and a few others might like to think about.

[5711N0205W]

but that they don't seem to publish anything that contradicts their bias.
IMO the site needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

I agree definitely a pinch of salt, having posted there once and having had the content subtly edited I'd say take care.

[TG345]

I agree definitely a pinch of salt, having posted there once and having had the content subtly edited I'd say take care.

I am greatly relieved, in reading this developing thread, that I am not the only one to feel aggrieved at the Skytrax outfit. I have had several posts on that site "edited" which resulted in my views being entirely mis-represented when the posts appeared. If one tunnels deep enough into their Terms and Conditions section it is possible to see that they reserve the right to bugger about with your views, but in all fairness that should be stated in big red capitals when you log on to the site. Personally, I would never favour them with my views again. That sort of censorship is not what the internet should be about.