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lrjones Dec 7th, 2005 04:27 AM

Air France Business Class
 
I have reservations on hold to go to Paris from Chicago using Air France. I thought Air France would be a good option, but am now reconsidering based on these postings. Would I be better off using Delta Elite even with the bankruptcy issue? Any other airlines you would recommend that I could use Skymiles for business class? Thanks for the input.

rkkwan Dec 7th, 2005 07:12 AM

What's wrong with AF's business class? They fly non-stop, so you avoid a transit somewhere. More stops = more chances of delays, missed connection. And domestic flights have the less comfortable first class seats.

Other apparent choices using Skymiles are:

NW. Connection in Detroit, but DTW-CDG is on the new A330 with audio/video on-demand and nice new seats.

KLM. Connection in Amsterdam. But they fly ORD-AMS with a 747-400, so you have a chance to sit upstairs.

CO. Continental has a very good BusinessFirst product, but check to see if they require extra miles. Seats are not flat, but very wide and good service. However, you need to connect in Newark, and Chicago flights arrive/depart from Terminal A, and will require a tram ride and reclearance of security.

DL. DL flies from CVG, JFK and ATL to Paris. ATL would lengthen your trip, and I don't like transitting there. The best is a Cincinnati transit. Shortest total time, and customs/immigration coming back should be a breeze.

mjz Dec 7th, 2005 12:18 PM

Air France would be the easiest option. However, I've flown three SkyTeam Airlines to Europe in business and Air France was my least favorite. Delta (767 and 777) was my favorite and NWA (DC-10, A330) was second. I have not flown business in Continental, but hear it's quite nice. Once again, it's hard to beat a non stop flight to Europe. Of the SkyTeam domestic airline gateways, CVG is my favorite (easy and smaller) while ATL and JFK are my least.

Patty Dec 7th, 2005 03:13 PM

Air France isn't my favorite carrier in business class either, but if the choice is between a nonstop on AF versus a connection on DL or another carrier, I'd still opt for AF. Also I've only flown AF in the old business configuration and ORD-CDG might have the new one already.

THERESA10 Dec 11th, 2005 04:25 PM

As Long as Your are not making a connecting flight to Paris You should be fine, otherwise I wouldn't use Air France. Peroid. CDG is a Living Nightmare. You can not get from one gate to the other in less than 2 hours. Air France Crews were fine. The Service very good. However, the Airport Service Teams at CDG are Awful, and Don't care about Their Service or Customers. No wonder Their in Bankruptcy.

rkkwan Dec 11th, 2005 04:29 PM

Air France is not in bankruptcy. They've merged with KLM to become even stronger, and is making money.

Or do you mean the operator of CDG is in bankruptcy? That I have no idea.

Patty Dec 12th, 2005 05:12 AM

I did the transfer from CDG 2F1 to 2C in under 30 min recently including passport control, shuttle, and security check.

otto Dec 12th, 2005 06:01 AM

theresa10...i must clarify...adp, aeroport de paris, who owns and runs cdg to my understanding is not in bankruptcy. where did you see this information? the majority of european airports suffer from staff union strikes, cdg isn't the only one by any stretch of the imagination. air france, who is enjoying the profits of the merger with klm as rkkwan said, is in it's 9th profitable year.

CanadianinColombia Dec 12th, 2005 11:47 AM

Staff in Europe at AF are some of the nastiest people to ever deal with. Add to that CDG is a horrible airport that hastles connecting passengers to security checks above and beyond passengers checking into depart from CDG go through.

This is a no brainer, fly another airline!


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