Air France

#160
This is a tough one.
I love to travel. I do it often. I am aware of my favorite and least favorite airlines. I have actually never traveled with Air France until this month. Will it be the last time? IDK…
First of all, who does not want to visit Paris, even if it is for an overnight layover? I kind of scheduled it that way so I could see a little of Paris while I awaited my flight back to the States. Well, bad idea.
The flight was «okay» and the food was «okay» but the flight attendants were jerks at several points throughout the flight. Now, my mother would say, «That is because we are French and blah, blah, blah…» but I think no matter who you are and where you come from – BE NICE!!!
They did get my luggage through safely and securely, the movies offered were great. I enjoyed my travel space as I upgraded, but I just thought the attendants were SO SUPER RUDE.
Would I fly Air France again? Not if I have a choice.
Stephani Slightly Smiles for Air France ;-/

I arrived to check in and my baggage was 15kg… this is my carry on and personal item combined. They made me check it for being 3 kg over the 12kg limit. They charged 30euro for that, but they didn’t charge my friend because they had last his baggage on the way to Paris a few days ago. I am travelling with him and it was an inconvenience to me as well, however they refused to waive out the charge for me too. I even spoke to a manager named stefanie and she said «you have to pay, this is where this conversation ends» no way to treat customers.

please help me put air france out of business. my wife and i had planned for over 6 months to go to paris to visit our kids and grandkids. we paid for our tickets in july for a december trip. due to the killings in paris and the us governments recommendation not to travel now to paris, i tried to cancel our trip and get my money back. they will not give me any money back. their so called customer service rep said if it were her she would get on the plane and go. stupid… don’t fly air france…

The check in process is the worst of any airline, even if you are just dropping off your baggage, it is still the same line and an average wait of 44 minutes. One of the worst airlines

I noticed before Oct 22 that my tickets do not contain 1 free baggage. I called into air france to discuss this issue. I wanted to make sure and was okay with paying the baggage price ahead of time because it had a discounted. However, over the phone, I was told that I would get 1 free baggage per person, even after I gave him my confirmation number. I even made sure to sign up for the frequent flying miles because I was sure I was going to continue using this flight service. When I finally checked in on NOV 3^rd for the 6:40 flight from Venice to Paris, she told me I did not have free baggage for my type of tickets. She also quoted me, «If you go on the website, you can complain.» Now I am displeased with service that I had caught the discrepancy earlier about my baggage. I would have been alright with the discount price but ended up paying full price instead. When I said to the woman at the check in that Air France is basically lying to me, she looked at me dumbfounded and did not understand the word «lying.» Now my impression of this company is that they’re dishonest and lack communication.

There is a part two to this story because Air France lost my luggage. The customer service representative specifically said the luggage must travel with the passenger. She made it a point to take my luggage tag number when issuing my new ticket. I arrived in Florence with no luggage. I was told by the airport, my bags were still in Paris. So not only did I arrive 8 hours late, I had no clothes, etc.
We kept calling the number provided. The bags were finally shipped on the last flight of day 2. I had to take a cab to the airport to pick up. What a complete pain! I filed my claim for some expenses. I finally got an email today from Delta indicating they were handling my claim. If it is any consolation, I will be reimbursed excluding the cab rides.

This review is for the seat selection process. I booked a flight from SFO to CDG many months before the flight date. No seat could be assigned at the time. I tried a few months before the flight and was informed that the company holds most of its seats until 30 hours before the flight. We would have to select seats when we checked in online or at the airport.
At 30 hours I went online to check in but because it was a flight from the U.S., I had to wait until 24 hours before. At 23 hours before (was tied up at work for that first hour), I checked in and the only two seats available together we’re at the very back of the plane. I called the airline and thy suggested that I try to change it at the airport gate.
At the airport gate I was told there were no available seats to change to.
So my question is, how the hell did all the other hundreds of passengers get their seats reserved while we couldn’t?
We are just praying we don’t miss our connection.

The flight itself both ways to and from Paris was smooth, and flight attendants pleasant and efficient. The issues we had were specific to the airport:
On our flight to Europe via AirFrance we had no issues with any baggage or anything. However, at the CDG airport on our trip home, we ran into a major issue. We were never told, nor was it on our boarding pass — that our carry-​on bags had to be 12kg or under limit! We checked in, and the ladies there actually told us to take luggage out of our checked bags because our checked baggage was over 23kg. Why would you tell us that if we cannot have over 12kg on a carry-​on? We were forced to check another bag for $ 80USD — without warning ahead of time, and there was no way they would let us onto the flight. This is completely unfair, we had to pay for a 3^rd bag we were not given advance notice on — which was a nice Tumi suitcase we never check because how nice it is. Of course the bag came out of the trip with many scratches — which was not planned.
On top of this, the entire ordeal was rudely handled — the agents were too busy talking with each other and gave very little direction of what to do. We should not have been charged this extra baggage fee, as we were not made aware this rule even existed. Thanks a lot for a horrible ending to a great trip AF!

Not a great trip with Air France, both on the way to Vienna (transfer at CDG Paris) and on the way back.
The trip there started out ok, however there seemed to be much confusion and the boarding process was much more lengthy due to that. Once on board, the flight to CDG was ok. Three in flight meals from Chicago to Paris. The food was just ok, nothing to write home about and I am glad we were served quite efficiently. There was on board entertainment. Once we made a mad dash due to arriving slightly late in Paris we just made our connecting flight to Vienna.
In Vienna, we discovered that all of our Bags were NOT transferred from Air France to Austrian Airways and we did not get our bags until the following day.
The trip back was worse. We boarded in CDG Paris and my mother-​in-​law was asked to deplane as she had been selected for a random security check. The attendants were rudely asking her in French to deplane, when I intervened and explained to them in French that she does not understand what they are saying and could I accompany her off the plane? I was told no, that she needed to take her belongings and deplane immediately. Her and another passenger both in their 70’s were escorted off the plane only to be brought back on the plane 15 minutes later. They announced afterwards that the flight would be delayed because they had not completed the security check properly.
Once in flight, our entertainment did not work properly. We were unable to watch movies or TV for half of our total flight time. I would definitely not book with Air France again even though their prices were a bit cheaper, it is just not worth it for long flights to skimp.

AVOID THIS AIRLINE!!! I flew AirFrance from Paris CDG to Milan LIT. This was my worst travel experience ever! Air France lost my luggage. As of the writing of this review, I still have not received my baggage. The level of customer service is horrendous. Stay with Delta Airlines, British Airways, or Virgin Atlantic.

Worst customer service of any airline in the business. They stole 200 dollars from me for a bag fee for a nonexistent bag that I didn’t check and then condescended to me on twitter about it. It’s a lying, cheating, thieving company, and I hope it goes out of business.

I am only giving Air France one star because I can’t give them less. My husband and I flew Air France from SFO to Paris, then onto Budapest, and returned to SFO from Paris. I will not waste any more of my time on this airline other than to say Americans/​English-​speaking passengers in general were treated poorly before boarding and during the flight. Any contact with Air France before our flight was met with a general «we really don’t care» attitude. We would not fly on Air France if they were the last airline available and we were given free tickets. Period.

I flew them recently from SFO to Paris CDG, then to Bangalore and back again. They aren’t the worst airline, but they cannot handle most basic comfort and convenience issues. I have been flying for over 25 years now, and Air France is at the bottom 3 of my top ten, with Singapore, Emirates and Cathay being the top 3.
Here are my issues:
1. Family of 3 with a 5 and a 7 year old. We weren’t seated together on the return leg. 3 calls to the customer service got me nowhere and a lot of ‘don’t care if you don’t like us’ attitude. Originally the seats were together; they changed the seats on the fly to separate us. Then they wanted 22 $ per seat ‘coz those were the only ones they had together at that time’. May I mention we called them almost 25 days prior to our flight date? I was really upset that even though we had called in more than 3 weeks prior to our return leg’s departure, all seats were already taken, supposedly.
AF — Are you guys running a scam here or what?
2. Special veg meal was ordered, was confirmed, and then got non veg regular meals on the return leg — coz somehow, my name ‘wasn’t on the list’. The request was made when we initially bought our tickets. One leg was fine, return was not. How is that possible? Lucky I eat non veg, otherwise it would have been bad.
3. Lastly, they advertise that they let you ‘choose you seat’ online 30 hours before the flight. Don’t trust that the seats will be available! Unlike British Airways, who’s similar feature allows you to pick your seat among many available, Air France’s seats were already mostly taken, (for every leg) and this is exactly 30 hours prior to the flight! (I always pride myself in being among the first to login, check in and try to assign my seats as soon as they are available online)
There were numerous other issues: big, square IFE boxes which are floor mounted on their A330 on B, D, G and J seats. (almost all rows with those seats have them!) They rob about 40% legroom. Floor mounted IFEs have been phased out at most major airlines. Not Air France.
In CDG we broke our journey for a week, to vacation in Paris. (Great city, BTW) when we arrived to board our onward flight at CDG to Bangalore, we found no agents to manually help us with our baggage tags. We had checked in online, but they wouldn’t provide human support to give us our boarding passes either! (at SFO as well as Bangalore, there were agents who tagged our bags, and gave us boarding passes, but not at CDG!). This resulted in a long line of confused passengers booked on various flights trying to print their tags and boarding passes at the ‘self service’ kiosks. For someone who hasn’t manually tagged their own check in bags, the tags aren’t that easy to put on!
I get that Air France saves money by having self serve kiosks, but what about the poor passenger with young kids? They are left to stand in a long line, not knowing how to tag the bags, and enduring other annoyances such as unhelpful agents when requesting any info! All this, at their main airport, Paris CDG? Good god!
Too many issues adding up. I am not flying them again, ever.

I flew from San Francisco to London via Paris on AF 83 on June 25, 2015.
I had been tracking the AF flights for that week and all were seriously late departing SFO.
That was no exception to my flight.
I must say the on board service was good and the flight attendants were very pleasant.
I travel on Business many times a year to Europe mostly on British Airways and Lufthansa.
This time I tried Air France.
The flight was late departing San Francisco which meant that my connection which was 1 hour and 50 minutes at Paris was reduced to 20 minutes.
The boarding process at SFO was like a cattle stampede
When I opened the sealed bag that contained the comforter, the smell that came from there was PUTRID. The comforter smelled like the previous person who had used it had VOMITED on it and that it was not properly washed after that.
The flight was full so there were no extra blankets to sleep with.
On arrival in Paris I had 20 minutes to make the connection flight, which I did make, mostly because I am an experienced traveler and know how to negotiate the terminals.
My luggage of course did not make the connection flight.
On my arrival at Heathrow I reported to the AF missing luggage counter and filled out the missing luggage form.
My scheduled arrival in to London was 135pm and I had given myself 7 hours of time to account for possible delays before my business dinner that evening.
The AF baggage representative advised me that my luggage would be arriving into London on the next Air France flight from Paris at 420pm and that he would arrange for a priority delivery of the bags to my hotel in central London by no later than between 630pm and 7pm that evening.
My luggage arrived at about 9pm, which meant that I had to quickly go out and purchace clothes for the dinner that evening as I had nothing else to wear.
My Bag arrived and the right wheel which was built in to the construction of the bag (not hanging loosely on the outside of the bag), had been RIPPED out of the bag rendering it useless to travel with.
This meant that I had to purchase a new suitcase the next morning in London.
When I called Air France In London to tell them what happened they said I must find a baggage repair place somewhere in London on Saturday or Sunday and have them repair the unrepairable bag .Such places are closed on weekend days. I was scheduled to leave London on Monday morning. Air France had just given me the brush off.
The damage done to the luggage was so severe that the force with which it was handled must have been with extreme violence.
So the reader can asses the report themselves.
1. Late flights all week long from SFO.
2. Boarding handled like a cattle ranch.
3. Business Class blanket was filthy.(disgusting)
4. Almost missed connection.
5. Luggage missed connection flight.
6. Luggage delivered after promised time.
7. Luggage destroyed by Air France.
WOW 7 strikes !! that’s a LOOSER for a 1^st time flight with Air France
That was the first and last experince I will ever have with Air France. Good luck to all those who fly them.
I’ll stick to British and Lufthansa for the hundreds of times Ive flown them, I have never had a such a HORRIFIC experience.
Trust me avoid Air France if you possibly can

Stuck at LAX for hours as AirFrance refused to let us board to a flight to Southern Africa.
Something about a transit visa for Johannesburg. British Airways jumped in and flew us all the way at no extra cost. FYI, we could walk in and out of the customs area at Johannesburg without a transit visa.

Where should I even start? To prologue this review I should mention that before experiencing the wonder that is AirFrance, I was kind of having the worst day on my trip. TigerAir was just horrible: $ 4 for drinks, $ 40 for checked luggage. Ick! Before departure on TigerAir I prepared my belongings to be carried on because I really didn’t want to check in any bag and pay $ 40. Long story short, security didn’t like what I was bringing on board so I got detained and ended up missing my flight. So many things went wrong from there, but I suppose all worked out eventually, especially because I was blessed with having to take a later flight to my destination under AirFrance. I don’t know if it was because of sudden contrast from terrible to way above-​average, but everything about this airline blew me away!
First of all, I’ve never seen so many crew members serving such a tiny flyer population on board before! The isles were delightfully filled with men and women who were serving a full-​blown meal and drinks on a 1.5-hour flight! We barely got off the ground and everyone’s cups were filled and laughter filled the cabin. I asked for OJ, which they didn’t have right then and there, so I said I’ll have a coke instead. Before I knew it, my table had a coke and an OJ. I don’t even recall seeing how it got there!
Second of all, the crew was super professional: they greeted us while we were boarding. Not just the captain; every crew member was standing and smiling as we walked down the isle. «Bonjour!» everywhere!
Thirdly, the bathrooms were the cleanest I’ve seen on any aircraft during all my years of travel. I felt like I was in first class with the roominess and cleanliness. We had a private TV screen, comfortable leather-​eared headphones, amazing service, and so much leg room!
Fourth, their prices from Singapore to Jakarta were the cheapest in
. I use kayak to search for cheap flights and so far it hasn’t let me down. AirFrance was cheaper than TigerAir! And with all the pros listed above, it seriously is a wonder how they stay in business.
As a minimalist traveler, I like to legally steal from hotels and airlines, especially their pillows because they are portable and comfortable. I actually felt guilty even thinking about stealing from AirFrance. They deserve every penny I gave them for my wonderful experience and I wouldn’t think about taking anything from them. Go me!
Anyways, this wasn’t my first time on AirFrance. From what I recall, they consistently please me with their service. It’s just now that I am bringing this to my conscious.

Our flight was OK but not great. We were in Economy class and we paid premium for exit row seats. I know I need to lose some weight but the seats were just uncomfortable and 10 hours of uncomfortable is not fun. I’ve flown Lufthansa and KLM and both had better seats and amenities when flying internationally.
The flight attendants were nice enough and food was okay. Would I fly Air France again? Possibly, if I fly business class.

Left Paris on time and arrived in San Francisco on time. cabin crew provided excellent service. Both meals were much better than other airlines that I fly to and from Europe.
They do not charge for wine and beer as the U.S. are inclined to do on international flights

Air France is a formerly good airline which had a rough period and is now trying to return to former goodness (I’d hesitate to say they were ever great, and they probably never will be great again).
The SFO operation is fine. The lounge is pretty meh, but if you can get into the Delta Sky Club, it’s marginally better. SFO is a reasonable first-​world airport, so the airline doesn’t really have to do much there.
In flight experience is mixed. The AF hard product (seats in Business, aircraft, etc.) is kind of meh — old 777s and 747s badly in need of refresh, and no lie-​flat seats in Business. The soft product: cabin crew, pilots, catering, etc. are all really good, in my experience. They’ve really improved catering in the past couple years. In general AF J is superior to UA C/​F. SQ, CX, etc. still crush them.
CDG, however, is another story. It’s the worst designed (well, evolved, not really designed) major airport I’ve visited. No useful signage; traveling to a lounge required going through a lot of unmarked doorways, and I went through customs several times going airside to groundside to get between terminals.
CDG lounges are full of obnoxious screaming European children (generally from Italy and Spain; not French and not American), so you get to deal with that while waiting for connecting flights.
Really, just stick to BA, Virgin, or Lufthansa for European flights, especially in premium cabins, and you’ll be happier. LHR isn’t a great joy either, but BA and VS are good airlines. Really they’re all pretty mediocre compared to the Middle Eastern and Asian carriers; Europe and the US really need to step their game up when it comes to commercial aviation.

I booked a roundtrip flight from SFO to Italy using Delta. The flight back connected from Italy to Paris, CDG and was operated by AIr France. Compared to Delta’s plane and crew, I loved my experience flying with Air France. The crew was very very friendly and constantly provided flight updates. The seats were comfortable, I loved the entertainment options. There were SOOOOO many movies I had a hard time deciding which ones to pick (always a good problem to have on an 11 hour flight). As far as airplane food goes, it wasn’t terrible either. And I like that when you ask for wine, they give you the entire mini bottle :)
Flight was smooth and we actually landed 50 min earlier than expected! The back of my bag was broken somehow (the plastic part that lines it, where the handle retracts into), but I wrote in and received a check pretty quickly!
Since I didn’t experience any problems, I can’t speak for what everyone else is saying, but I have taken other international flights and compared to those (especially United — I can’t believe they don’t offer screens for each flyer in int’l economy, that is a JOKE to me. You also get food more frequently when you fly with Delta/​Air France), Air France is a great option. I still think Virgin Atlantic is my favorite.