Air France

Two roads diverged in a woods, and I --

Modern traveling is not traveling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel. -- John Ruskin

Introduction

Air France recently announced its merger plans with KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij a.k.a Royal Dutch Airlines) . If it were to become a reality, it would be the single largest airline company by means of revenue. I had an opportunity to fly Air France to Montreal via Paris. So did few of my colleagues, who shared similar experience with me. Let me explain the services and the company in my review.

Air France is also a part of the SkyTeam that covers 7, 865 daily flights to 500 destinations in 110 countries with six member airlines that includes Delta, Alitalia, Korean Air, AeroMexico, CSA Czech airlines. This makes it an unbeatable alliance for world travel. You can just about get a ticket to most parts of the world.

AF also covers major international cities by itself, making it a great option to fly to international cities. As it is operated out of a picturesque Paris (Paree) , it is one of the largest and widely traveled airlines when it comes to tourism. It is also one of the profitable airlines in the world in every aspect.

My Experiences

I had this opportunity to fly to Montreal via Paris, from Delhi. I flew to Delhi via Indian Airlines from Chennai and switched flights at Delhi. I had the option of Frankfurt-Montreal via Lufthansa or this option. I chose Air France and was pleasantly surprised and overwhelmed with my experience. Before I present my findings, let me tell you what my colleagues faced couple of days before I traveled.

My Colleagues traveled the same route as I did and they visited the AF counter in Paris due to a stop over. They were told that the airline has offered the seats to someone else. They were asked to wait for few minutes. After perfidious five minutes, an AF manager approached them and following was the conversation.

AFM: Hello Sirs, We are very sorry about the issue. We do have an alternative.

MC (One Vegan and one non-vegan), after a minute: Yes, sure we will take it.

Finally, they enjoyed their flights to Montreal in l’Espace Affaires class. It had almost fully aslant seats with a minute-by-minute care and all.

I have heard many complaints about the apathy of AF personnel. While it may be true that some of the ground staff are short-tempered and will wigwag questions with sluggishness, the cabin staff are unvaryingly professional, if not kind and fuzzy. It is the same with most of the airlines across the world.

On the same note, my journey was also a great one. They gave me enough freedom in choosing my own seats. Let us see my analysis

Ground staff & Check-in

The personnel in Delhi were all Indians well versed in French. They were very polite and helpful. They even organized the queue and informed the passengers in queue about immigration et al, well in advance. Baggage related queries and requests were accepted promptly and with a nice smile. My wife and myself were doubly happy about the whole check-in procedure.

In Paris, where we had to switch flights, the ground staff was helpful in spite of being a bit too particular about French in the conversation. We had a bit of tough time understanding the accent and what they were trying to say, as they are fast (what can you say when they speak 240 words per minute). As we had to change terminal, we were helped to the loading deck. I was quite surprised to load an international airplane via ground in Charles De-Gaulle Airport. The reason for that was due to bad weather and the number of flights moving in and out of CDG that day.

In Flight Services

All the flights had individual LCD TVs attached to the backside of the seat with a remote control cum game-pad. You can choose any of the 12 or so movies they telecast at any time and even listen to many channels of non-stop music. The movies are relatively new and are good selection, nonetheless. I chose to see Finding Nemo again (See my review on the same) for a while before settling in on a French movie.

Another good thing was the games console. It was very nice to while away time playing games. The games were interesting and easily navigable. I chose and played Chess and Reversi with relative ease.

We were offered an eye-pad with air-freshener to make you sleep. It was a welcome relief and we were not asked for $10 or so like other airlines.

The food was served at right time and the drinks were unlimited. As a teetotaler, I stuck to an apple juice. When I asked for some water, I was informed that the tray is available for use at all times, at a corner and I was welcome to take anything I wanted!.

The food was excellent!!. I had asked specifically for Indian vegetarian meal and matter paneer, samosa, rice and kheer was just awesome. I certainly wasn’t expecting a sumptuous meal in AF, at least from Paris to Montreal.

I was always listened to and responded quickly by the in-flight crew.

The legroom was quite nicely comfortable and my fortunate colleagues were having a totally wonderful journey.

My Rating

»»» Ground Staff : ♥♥♥♥ stars

»»» Baggage Services : ♥♥♥♥ Stars

»»» Inflight services : ♥♥♥♥ stars

»»» Food: ♥♥♥♥♥ stars

»»» Legroom : ♥♥♥½ stars

»»» Flight experience : ♥♥♥♥½ stars

»»» Amenities : ♥♥♥♥♥ stars

»»» Overrall experience: ♥♥♥♥½ stars

Conclusion

As per my initial quote, I chose the less fancier option in front of me and was very pleasantly surprised with the outcome and Robert Frost was absolutely right. I am quite impressed and would love to fly AF again and again and again. I am just happy about Air France as I am about United Airlines (See my review on the same)

BTW, my review was titled “Bonjour! Ayez un voyage merveilleux!!!”.

I hope you liked my review. Do comment and rate the review.

KALIL

I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home. -- William Hazlitt