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YAA(irline)Rant: Air France - a flying circus

P

paulney

Diamond Member
Mother-in-law called about an hour ago (10 PM) from SFO saying she was still at the terminal, and the flight did not leave and is being rescheduled for the next day. We dropped her off this morning at 1PM 0_o

She is returning home, speaks very little English, so it's hard for her to understand wtf is going on. While wife is getting in the car to go get her from the terminal, I log on to Air France website.

Flight status check: on time, currently flying over somewhere in Atlantic.
Me: oh shieeet, she must have missed the boarding somehow. Impossibru, but happens.

Call SFO. SFO call center has no clue about the flight - it doesn't show up, so they transfer me to Air France.

Air France: bonjour, sir. How can vee help you? Oh, zee flight to Pari? On schedule, sir, everysing is good!

Me: FFFFUUUU

Finally check Delta, since it's a codeshare flight (operated by Air France): delayed. Did not take off. Call Delta. They, at least, have the info: flight left the gate, sat on tarmac, then returned to gate. Everyone was told to GTFO and get their baggage. See ya tomorrow, suckas.

Now more info from M-I-L: they sat on the tarmac for FIVE fucking hours. Plane was broken, something in the wing, they could not have it fixed, and SFO would not grant them a departure (at least the info she got from someone translating to her what was going on).

Baggage dumped in some small room (no carrousel), everyone is trying to get theirs out of the common pile. Zero customer service from Air France - they just left for the day (drink some wine, whateva, I'm le tired).

Uhghghg.... Problem is, her visa expires the day after tomorrow, so she has to leave tomorrow at the latest. And then there are all the connections to make... Fun, fun, fun.


UPDATE: she still has not left SFO, and by the looks of it, she'll be lucky to leave this afternoon. More info on page 2.
 
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Bad experience as well recently. I had a code shared flight from Toronto to Ontario, California.
(not the Canadian province, Ontario). LAX wasn't an option because my company wanted to make things fun.

Anyway. I had the executive cab drop me off at the wrong terminal not knowing Untied was handling everything. Nobody knew what to do with me. I thought I had to wait for this regional carrier's counter to open for international flights until one of the skycaps told me I had to haul ass to United. I did so, rushed through customs,checked in baggage, went through security and ran for 10 minutes into a dinky add-on terminal way off the beaten path where the small Embraer's and Bombairder's park. 200 people with 8 gates in a tiny building with no AC.
I couldn't stop sweating. Turns out the flight was delayed. Fortunately, my connecting flight from Houston was delayed too,
 
These days with the new rules, they just cancel the flight instead of sitting on the tarmac and fixing the plane. I think they have a four hour rule about sitting on the tarmac. If they can't fix the plane in a couple hours, they bail.
 
If it makes you feel any better United is just as awful. Lufthansa is a great airline for customer service in my limited experience though. They're stereotypically German, i.e. not the most friendly but they get their jobs done well.
 
I've generally found that if you are French or at least can speak it a little AF service is pretty good. If you aren't and don't you are pretty much fucked if something goes wrong.

I try to stick to mainline flights from US carriers (American Airlines mostly). They are at least a known quantity without a language barrier. Beware codeshares when traveling internationally....these should usually be indicated during the booking process.
 
K1052 said:
I try to stick to mainline flights from US carriers (American Airlines mostly). They are at least a known quantity without a language barrier. Beware codeshares when traveling internationally....these should usually be indicated during the booking process.
Click to expand...

If you're flying internationally then good European airlines (Lufthansa and Swiss immediately come to mind) are vastly superior to any US carrier.
 
MichaelD said:
+1 for Lufthansa being an awesome airline
Click to expand...

Yep have had great experiences with them. On my last trip back I was feeling a bit under the weather and the stewardess noticed and without me even asking she went and brought me tea. Not even just a cup, the whole kettle!
 
K1052 said:
I've generally found that if you are French or at least can speak it a little AF service is pretty good. If you aren't and don't you are pretty much fucked if something goes wrong.

I try to stick to mainline flights from US carriers (American Airlines mostly). They are at least a known quantity without a language barrier. Beware codeshares when traveling internationally....these should usually be indicated during the booking process.
Click to expand...

American Airlines aka Ghetto Airlines. I take any European carrier for transatlantic travel
 
K1052 said:
I've generally found that if you are French or at least can speak it a little AF service is pretty good. If you aren't and don't you are pretty much fucked if something goes wrong.

I try to stick to mainline flights from US carriers (American Airlines mostly). They are at least a known quantity without a language barrier. Beware codeshares when traveling internationally....these should usually be indicated during the booking process.
Click to expand...

on all AF transatlantic flights all cabin crew speaks English so...
 
SAS>United>Lufthansa>ANA

KLM used to be my favorite non-Star Alliance airline, Air France was my last so I don't know what the merger did to them.
 
Damn you guys...you could have started this thread before I booked my flights to Nice and Paris yesterday. 😀

Fortunately I did so on Swiss Air to Nice and Air Canada from Paris back home. I read some less than stellar things about Air France, but then again almost EVERY airline was averaging a 5-6 out of 10 on the review site I was browsing with a few in the 3-4 range.
 
ichy said:
If you're flying internationally then good European airlines (Lufthansa and Swiss immediately come to mind) are vastly superior to any US carrier.
Click to expand...

I've flown Swiss and they have a good operation and super friendly staff, better than most other Euro carriers.
 
Was flying Al Italia a couple years ago and during our descent into JFK one of the overhead luggage compartments popped open and a rather large carry on bag began shifting out of the compartment. The Al Italia air hostess was seated a couple rows away could see this... and just flat out ignored it. I think we all expected her to get up, push the bag back in and close the overhead compartment, but she just sat there staring at it doing nothing. Finally a guy stand up, pushes the luggage back in and closes the overhead bin only to have a host of Al Italia stewardesses swarm the area and begin reprimanding him for leaving his seat during a landing procedure. All the passengers in the area raised their voices and got the Al Italia ladies to back off the guy. Had the bag fallen out of its compartment it would have come down on the head of this little old lady, and it looked large enough to have seriously injured her, if not killed her.

The moral of this story is Al Italia is poop.
 
K1052 said:
I've flown Swiss and they have a good operation and super friendly staff, better than most other Euro carriers.
Click to expand...

The last time I took them trans-Atlantic they served Mövenpick ice cream a couple hours before landing 🙂

I have many fond memories of the old Swissair, sadly they are gone forever.
 
K1052 said:
I was speaking about CS issues when shit blows up.
Click to expand...

AIr France has a US 1-800 number with English speaking staff. Most of their US based ground crews are native English or are bilingual. When it comes to languages European carriers are more customer oriented, I've been on plenty of USA carrier transatlantic flights where the only spoken language is English. Let's be honest here, a French dude will have a hard time finding anyone speaking his language when flying with a US carrier. All of the European carriers have English as a requirement. I stand corrected if proven wrong
 
K1052 said:
Better than Alitalia, Iberia, etc. The coach service on BA also makes prison guards seem friendly in comparison.
Click to expand...

AA transatlantic on 757 or 767 are a disgrace, easily the worst of all carriers, 777 is meh OK.
I'll take BA over AA anytime of the day

Best in the world are Singapore Airlines, flew business class on the A380 few months ago from Heathrow to Melbourne.
 
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