Air France - reserved seat "policy"
 

I had an awful experiance with Air France this past week. We had confimed dseats (had been re-confirmed in fact). Upon arriving at DeGaul 2 1/2 hours before departure we were told that our seats had be re-assigned to passangesr from an oversold flight the night before. They offered 250 EUR credit toward a next flight and gaurenteed seats on a connection They would just bump somone on the next flight; ho's that for Lunacy. We said "no" and waited until 5 minutes before departure and they let us have the last two seats on the plane, 30 rows apart! We were the first in line to be bumped yet they boarded 4 others ahead of us until we screamed at them. The audacity was unbeliveable. We were advised "there is no Customer Service department in this Airport". Their HUB!!! No kidding, there is no sense of customer at Air France. We will never fly Air France again. Has anyone else had problems??? (By the way the food out of Boston was horrible....the whole experience was akin to Peoples Express!!!!)

Hi Jeff,<BR> I realize that you are upset (assuming your not trolling), but when you come to your senses, you might consider that you could have taken the 250E and asked for an upgrade on the next flight.

I very nicely asked about an upgrade and he rudely said &quot;absolutely not&quot;....they took the position that this was my problem and not their's...the 250 is not worth being tortured by them again. I can get fair enough prices on many other carriers.

I know what you mean, Jeff. We had a bad experience at degaul too. They dont know the meaning of customer service. Try not to let it bother you, it took us a long time to calm down.

They did the same thing to my husband and myself when we were flying from CDG in bus.class I must have reconfirmed the flight 5 times and the strange thing was the computer showed my husband still sitting in the seat next to me and they just wouldn't give him the boarding pass until the rest of the flight boarded, I mean what were they waiting for someone better to come along. This was an Air France / Delta code share and my husband is a gold medallion memeber with Delta.

There is what passes for customer service on the lower level of DeGaul. They gave us another flight when they wouldnt let us on our scheduled one when they held us up in a holding room waiting for a transfer bus that was late. The worse part was that they offered no apology or explanation and refused to answer our questions. I have never seen such rude people as the one's at Air France.

I am sure there are two sides to every story. Air France has always been most reputable and generous in my dealings. They are the national airline you know.<BR><BR>Are their other factors we don't know about? What was your attitude? Was your bill paid in full prior to your arrival? How was your attitude/behavior on previous flights? These issues don't happen in a vaccuum and I wonder if the whole story is being told.

Well, I know my own personal story and both sides of it, so I know I was in the right. We were patient and polite I can assure you. Don't make excuses for the employees you dont know anything about in my case anyway, Jacques.

I appreciate you posting your experience with Air France-- this kind of feedback, whether negative or positive, is helpful. It may be anecdotal, but you add up enough anecdotes and you can get a fair idea of what is going on with an airline.<BR><BR>As you have discovered, any post with even a whiff of negativity about anything to do with France inevitably invites bitter responses from the more thin-skinned Francophiles who post here. You get an extra bonus point for braving their wrath to let us know about your experiences.

Thanks, Going, it is funny I told Jeff to try and get over the experience and then I got riled up thinking again about my own experience.

I have to agree that Air France's customer services are terrible. I had to travel from Paris to the UK in an emergency, and was quoted the most expensive fare (even though i discovered that cheaper fares were available). Due to the circumstances I paid up, but when I tried to contact the airline to complain that I hadn't been offered the cheaper rate (which I was eligible for), their customer services hotline simply did not reply. Just a message saying please call during our opening hours (which is what I was doing!). I tried calling them 10 times, and wrote to them but received no reply.<BR>And when travelling from the US to Paris after the death of a close family member, the friends who had accompanied me to the airport advised the Air France staff that I was upset and in shock, and asked for them to be &quot;sensitive&quot; to my situation. They were not. Seeing me in tears, the steward rudely told me that if I was too scared to get on the plane, I should stand away from the entrance as I was blocking it for other passengers!<BR><BR>One last complaint - their lacto-ovo vegetarian meals are absolutely vile, consisting of cold rice for the starter and hot rice for the main course, with no dessert and no decent bread or butter (soy margarine and a packet of dried up rye bread). <BR><BR>Unless I absolutely have to, I will never fly Air France again.

&quot;National Airline&quot;?! What's that got to do with anything? They're rude and they lie, so if that's how the French operate their national airline, how would you expect them to operate anything else.

I don't doubt that all of the dreadful experiences related here are true, but I have to say that Air France has always treated us very well, even when we were flying on free tickets (from Sprint points). The planes were clean, the attendants friendly and helpful.<BR>When our dog flew (in cargo) with us to France in 1997 for an extended stay, we got personal attention from ground personnel at CDG, the head flight attendants, and on the flight back, even the captain himself. <BR>Both Northwest and Air Canada temporarily lost our luggage on flights to Paris. Air France handled the loss report processing for us in Paris and did an excellent job on our behalf, including chasing an Air Canada rep down the hall when he tried to get away with passing off a business class toiletries kit as our total compensation instead of the $$ that was required. <BR>Maybe we've been lucky, but on the roughly dozen long haul Air France flights we've taken (all in economy), we've had nothing to complain about and lots to praise.<BR>BTilke

Hanl, get real: vegetarianism is nothing more than a food fetish, it's not supposed to be GOOD (that's not the point, food is potentially harmful, period, isn't this what you veggies think? ), even less so on a plane.

There's no reason why vegetarians traveling with Air France should be served LESS food than other passengers, that's all I'm saying. And there are degrees of good and bad when it comes to airline food (I admit I've yet to find one airline where the food was actually half-decent). My comment was that Air France is right down at the bottom of the scale.

Jacque, Ira and Jeff....Jeff is correct. Many times I think maybe it's the peoples attitude with the airlines when they have trouble. With Air France it's the airlines attitude. I know this first hand. They have no consideration for the customer and do tricks like they did to Jeff. My sister ordered tickets from Air France and when they came they were double the price. Air France would do nothing..Nothing. Not even an upgrade. And of course they hadn't recorded her conversation. Then they had too short a conection time coming and going. They missed their connection both ways. That's unacceptable. Going to Italy they had to wait 4 extra hours to connect to the other flight. That put us in the little dark roads of Tuscany at 10 pm. When she complained in a letter to Air France about the over charge, they sent her a very nasty letter back. I know the letter she sent was very nice and business like because I helped her write it so there was no emotion involved. I wouldn't fly Air France.

Dear Jeff,<BR><BR> You were certainly treated badly.

I too had a horrible experience with Air France last summer. Lost luggage both going and coming, damaged luggage, missed flights because of short intervals for plane changes, lack of concern by staff wwhne they could be found and total indignaiton by all grouns staff to our request fr assistance.<BR><BR>However, upon our return I sent them a letter and received, very quickly, 2 $200 vouchers and $260 for damaged goods and an apology. <BR><BR>

Of course not EVERY passenger has a bad experience, just alot of them do. We had a bad experience with Air France, really a worse one than with any other airline. They wouldn't let us board our plane because their own transfer system made us late at the gate and they gave away our seats, even though another gate manager called them to alert them that some passengers were waiting at a gate to be transferred to the correct one. They were very, very rude to us for no reason, we were just the pawns being herded around by their own personnel. I won't fly them again.

We usually fly Delta BusinessElite however they have no seats for an upcoming trip (using skymiles) so we are using our miles on Air France in First Class in and out of De Gaule. After reading these reviews, I'm in a panic. The thought of giving up 100,000 miles to be treated so poorly is very disturbing. <BR><BR>Does anyone have anything good to say about First Class???

TO everyone- <BR><BR>BOTTOM LINE--Do NOT FLY AIR FRANCE-<BR>their attitude is horrendous and there are plenty of other carriers out there that can do a better and friendlier job-<BR><BR>As far as Delta/Air France code share- MAKE SURE you are on a DELTA CARRIER-- as the SAME think happened to us in Atlanta- going over to France it was AIR FRANCE from Hell with horrendous steward/stewardess attitude- Home trip was DELTA from HEAVEN.....<BR><BR>

Sorry, but I hesitate when people post blanket boycott suggestions.<BR>I've flown Air France several times in economy class, I found their service pleasant, their food better than American-owned airlines, and the service from ground staff at DeGaulle acceptable. On the other hand, I was lucky enough to not have a problem or snag.<BR><BR>I am not debating with those who've had bad experiences, but my experience has been that every airline I've flown at one time or another, domestically or internationally, occasionally or constantly, has failed to provide top-level service or has out-and-out deceived or inconvenienced its passengers when something went wrong. <BR><BR> Usually with this sort of thing, whether it's an airline or a hotel or a restaurant, those who've been lucky grade the service provider with high marks, and those who have been unlucky or mistreated understandably want to vent their anger.

Vickie,<BR><BR>I've flown Air France a lot in Business Class and have always been treated VERY well!<BR><BR>I can only imagine that First Class is at least as pleasant an experience...<BR><BR>BTW, can you really get a First transatlantic ticket for only 100'000 miles with DL??? That's an amazing deal - that's usually the amount for Business.<BR><BR>Hope this helps,<BR>Andre

I flew Air France in March 2001. I had no complaints at all. My luggage was delayed (didn't make it from my domestic flight to JFK onto the Air France flight) and even though it really wasn't their fault, it was delivered to my hotel and I was reimbursed for necessary items I purchased. The food was fine and the attendants quite pleasant. I would definitely fly them again. My one caveat, I was with a small tour group arranged by a travel agency that makes multiple trips to Paris. I don't know how much that helped since once we got to check-in, we were part of the whole pasenger group.

Andre,<BR><BR>Yes, Delta offers First Class on Air France (one of their partners) for 100,000 sky miles or Business for 80,000. Also on Delta's own flights in their BusinessElite Class for 80,000 which is our preference. Their BusinessElite is really nice.

Vickie,<BR><BR>While I've never flown BusinessElite (or AF first class), I have flown Continental BusinessFirst, which I think is very similar to BusinessElite: it's more plush than &quot;normal&quot; business class (such as on AF) and you sit at the very front (no first class).<BR><BR>Anyway, I would say from having seen the seats in AF First Class that you will be getting a MUCH better deal flying AF First than DL BusinessElite!!! We're talking real lie-flat beds here.<BR><BR>As I said, Business Class is also absolutely fine (we should all have to suffer this much). I found the seats slightly less comfortable than CO for example, but always had an excellent crew (definitely more professional than CO) and really liked the noise cancelling headsets.<BR><BR>BTW, I checked my Fr&eacute;quence Plus (AF FF program) guide and they also require 100k for First Class transatlantic, 80k for Business. Had them confused with Swiss - now live in Switzerland: they want 100k for business and 150k! for First. But that's my problem, not yours :-)<BR><BR>The main problem with AF and most hub carriers is that they tend to schedule connections with impossibly short layovers. This is a recipe for disaster - always insist on a layover of 2 hours or more.<BR><BR>Have a great trip - I'm sure you will!<BR><BR>Andre

We were supposed to fly out of boston with Delta/AF directly to Paris. Three hours before they phoned to say the flight was cancelled but we could get a flight if we hurried over. We had to drop everything and rush to make that flight only to find it was not direct, and had a three and one half wait in NY. They refused any compensation.

air france(Past customer),<BR><BR>What happened to you doesn't sound pleasant at all - however, I know of very few airlines which call you and actively try to rebook you when a flight is cancelled at the last moment... <BR><BR>Unless you are one of their (very) frequent fliers, most are happy enough to let you trek to the airport before announcing the &quot;good news&quot;!<BR><BR>Andre

Just returned ATL-CDG-ATL on code shares. Flew out on AF and back on Delta. On the basis of these flights we will pick Air France hands down. Nicer cabin staff, much much better meal service and better seating. (Economy both ways.) In fact some of the seats in the Delta 777 have no leg room i.e. there is equipment under the seats in front so even a 5'5&quot; person (wife) could not fit. As a topper, the AF flight to Paris was late leaving ATL and we had a short connection to a flight to Barcelona. The AF ground people wisked us through Charles de Gaulle and sheparded us through security without waiting and to the waiting plane. It left in 5 minutes after we entered. They assured us our baggage would be on the plane also. IT WAS. They could not have been nicer and more helpful. Kudos for AF.

There are too many complaints here about Air France to not take it seriously. Elaine seems to have had good flights on Air France, but she seems to be the exception. There are too many negative comments here that should not be ignored.

Just got off an AF flight a few hours ago from CDG. We flew Delta over, and AF was a much more comfortable experience. The food was great, as airline foods go, the staff was pleasant, but disappeared for a long time mid flight. Only problem was we 5 were given seat assignments as we boarded and were all seated in the middle of a section but rows apart. I bought my tickets 2 months ago. Oh well.

We flew Air France in June 2000 and the flight back to Chicago was cancelled. We could not get on another flight until the next day so we asked to be put up in a hotel for the night and were told they would not. The many people I spoke to were not very helpful at all! When leaving we were talking to another pasenger who happened to live in France and she told us she was given vouchers for hotel and meals, and that we should speak to someone higher in rank which we did and ended up getting the same thing she got.This person was very helpful and nice! I learned not to settle with what I am told by the people working at the checkin counter.

I've flown many airlines to Europe and of them all our favorite was Air France<BR>(which surprised me considering the bad rep the French have in the USA for being rude). The ground crews were just average but the stewarts on the planes both on our US to Paris and our Paris to Tel Aviv and then back the same way were all very pleasant and extra friendly and chatty (one was a stewardess but the others were all males). We got in quite a few long and interesting conversations with the aircrews in flights. I wrote the *only compliment* letter I have ever written to an airline after our flights to Air France and I've flown on top rated Singapore Air and other highly rated airlines before. This year we flew United and they lost our luggage on the way back from Dusseldorf and gave us no compensation for a night in a hotel without so much as a toothbrush (they delivered the bags the next day). When you want to talk about bad airlines talk about Northwest or Aeroflot or Quantas.