First time, Best business class?
 

My husband and I are about to fly business class to Florence. We have a couple options and since this is our first time flying business class, we wanted to go with the nicest option. We have:

Delta 767-300
Delta Airbus 330-300
Airfrance 777-200
KLM 777-200

Does anyone have experience with any of these particular planes? I know Delta has been in the process of upgrading their business class and AirFrance will complete their updates by Summer of 2017. We will be flying in April 2017, so AirFrance may not be quite done. All the flights will be leaving out of JFK, with Delta airbus leaving from ATL. We can either fly into CDG or AMS (I'm leaning toward AMS).

Thank you for any input you may have.

You can check cabin seating configurations, seat descriptions and seat ratings for any of those flights (and any others) at www.seatguru.com.

You'll also be able to get a lot more comments about the difference in airlines at flyertalk.com

Why haven't you looked at seatguru.com?

I'd avoid the 767 and airbus. Those aren't as large as the 777s.

Where are you flying to Florence from?

In order of preference:

Delta A330
Delta 767
Air France 777
KLM 777

Delta is all flat-bed, all direct aisle access for every widebody in their fleet.

If Air France is new business class (check the seat map - if the layout is 1-2-1, it is the new business class), then it moves ahead of the Delta 767, though you take some risk that you will get an old plane. I believe all ex-JFK flights are on updated planes, but just bear the risk in mind.

KLM, even when updated, will not be all direct aisle access and is, IMO, inferior as a result.

For service, I personally think Delta has the best service, but that is subjective of course.

For the itinerary, I would offer that going ATL to Europe is better as you get more sleep time. For connections in Europe, Amsterdam is more user friendly, but the business class lounges in Paris are slightly better. I would go with whichever has the better timing, with a slight preference for Amsterdam.

Oh, and you should consider posting this in the Air Travel forum.

You really should ALSO look at the NUMEROUS YouTube videos available. You get a MUCH better perspective of seat layouts, etc., than ANY of those SeatGuru pictures or those very subjective reviews will give you.

Thank you so much for all your feedback travelgourmet! This was extremely helpful!!!!

Sorry, I even reread the OP and missed the pertinent information. Apologies.

<i>Sorry, I even reread the OP and missed the pertinent information. Apologies.</i>

To be fair, I'm not entirely clear on the routing myself. I get the JFK/ATL to AMS/CDG to FLR, but is there another leg in there? For example, while I would choose CLT-ATL-CDG-FLR over CLT-JFK-CDG-FLR for the longer leg, I wouldn't take JFK-ATL-CDG-FLR if I could instead take JFK-CDG-FLR.

I've flown business class on Air France twice, but I don't remember the model of the plane. The beds were the most comfortable I've experienced. (I zonked out for about 6 hours, which is rare for me on a flight.)