 Teenagers used as Guineepigs by AF ,
Apr 25, 2010
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reviewer: Ursel
from Canada
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Air France is using teenagers as guineepigs. There is not lots of info regarding flying an aircraft into volcano ash loaded atmosphere, yet AF doesn't give passanger with non-essential travel needs a chance to postpone the fly until the air is "cleaner".
My teenager niece was about to fly two days after they opened the air to fly again. We, the family considered that is still unsafe for a teenager to fly alone, especially that she doesn't have a direct flight. The situation in Iceland is not calm yet and if something unexpected appears, she will be stranded in Paris airport all by herself.
The Air France people told us that because we purchased an "adult ticket" for her, they don't believe us that she is underage. (needless to say her DOB is on their records).
They said that because her ticket was a 1 month ticket, we cannot extend the departure date even if we offered to pay the extra fees and I wanted to buy a ticket myself to accompany her at a later date.
When I offered that, despite the fact that we lose the ticket, we would like to let the airport AF people know they can use the seat for a stranded passanger (me thinking they cannot resell that ticket), the agent replayed rudely: "you're not getting any refund and don't worry they'll sell it once they see she's not boarding".
Never asked for a refund just wanted to help some people. It was interesting that AF is reselling the tickets that are payed and not used. Isn't this fraud? Selling the same service twice? Why they don't give it for free to someone that needs it?
Greedy company. It was our family first travel with them and hopefully the last. We will go back to our old British Airways which is not perfect but ten thousands times more decent. |
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Worst airline, First class terrible food & service,
Aug 14, 2009
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reviewer: alexandra
from France
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| Air France is a terrible airline, arrogant staff, service on board for first class (CDG/NRT) was at best indifferent and food was simply the worst, I think BA club does better..there was a hair in the freezing cold bread roll..unbelievable, disgusting and the steward purely took the bread back and asked if i wanted another one..not even an apology...Only good point was the seat..Avoid them if you can..; |
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Loose money fast,
Jun 23, 2008
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reviewer: James
from Australia
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| i paid around 2000 australian dollars to airfrance and lost my whole ticket beacause i missed a connecting flight with a codeshare airline. i was due to fly HKG-CDG-NCE-CDG-HKG and never got on one flight> worst airline ive ever heard of. if you want to loose money or pay money for nothing book air france |
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 So surprised !!!,
Apr 05, 2008
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reviewer: martin ... to keep it "cliché"
from France
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| I have been flying on Air France for many years and I've never had such terrible experiences that those described here. I am wondering if there not a bias due to the fact that it is a uk-based website ... sad to say but there is still a long way to build Europe ... |
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 Air France-Attitude of "We Don't Care, good bye",
Aug 20, 2007
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reviewer: Elisabeth Kirsten
from USA
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July 21, 2007 flight from Detroit/Paris/Sophia Bulgaria aboard Air France. Luggage lost. Travel mates returned to her after 4 day in Bulgaria. Mine never found. Trying to follow due process within Air France and was met with Air France associates making all steps virtually impossible to accomplish--everything in writing, no humans available and AF associats not filling the hand submitted paperwork to track lost luggage.
Returning to states 12 days later. Still no luggage and impossible to reach a human within Air France. Once contacted completely beligerant about facing their own errors finally being hung up by an Air France associate I am irate.
DO NOT FLY AIR FRANCE. RUDE, CARELESS AND INACESSABLE. SOMEONE WITHIN THE AIRLINE SYSTEM SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE CONTINUAL ARROGANCE AND CARELESSNESS OF AIR FRANCE. |
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Air France worst major airline: One example,
May 30, 2007
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reviewer: Philippe A. Bopp
from France
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I am trapped here in a part of France where Air France has a virtual monopoly. My last (of many similar) experiences: Flight to Paris CDG airport cancelled, local staff refuses any (I could think of at least 2) rerouting suggestions I made, sends me to Paris Orly instead, promises "efficent transfer" to CDG.
Procedure: Luggage not checked through final destination, so arrive Orly (late!), nobody there to arrange efficient transfer to CDG, so collect luggage, go to transfer counter, closed, go to other transfer counter, stand in line, collect to special transfer voucher for bus (and, wonder of wonders, a boarding pass for AF-connecting flight which 'could not' be issued at origin, 2 hours earlier).
Bus not there, wait for bus, one bus comes, full, wait for next bus. Bus stuck in Paris trafic (AF didn't know!), I arrive at the CDG gate 10 minutes after the scheduled departure of the connecting flight. Boarding refused! 3 hours delay (on a 4 hour flight!) at this horrible CDG airport, then stand again in line, no seats at the gate (terminal 2D) etc. etc.
The flight back was of course much better: Only 1 1/2 hours delay!
Cancelling flights, delays can happen everywhere (even though they seem to happen more in some places than others). What makes the difference is the quality of the service. Air France staff seems to have only one priority: Don't think, get rid of the customer by hook or by crook, send him/her anywhere else so that one does not have to deal with the problem, be as inflexible as a you can. All that is hidden behind the usual French claptrap and empty phrases obviously specially devised for this purpose.
A service concept that could have been developped by the KGB.
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Dont fly by Air France,
May 24, 2007
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reviewer: MM
from Norway
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I flew by air france from Paris/Mexico/Paris. It was so terrible! The staff and crew were so rude and zero professional.
The flight from Paris to Mexico was terrible. The movie screens didnt work and it is very obvious they are trying to save a lot of costs... food quality, food quantity...
Air France is the first flight company I have taken where they dont have juices for breakfast.... only cofee, tea and water.
When we were traveling from Mexico to Paris we had to wait at the airport for 10 hours and they didnt care I was pregnant, so they just kept us aside when we already had confirmed tickets.
At the end they came with a suggestion that my husband could fly but I didnt have a ticket.. My husband was very mad cause it was a very stupid idea and the supervisor pretended he couldnt do anything, his attitude was sooo bad. And he just turned and left us by the desk
Finally a kind girl from the sky team where air france belongs confirmed new tickets for us for the next day.
I advice not taking air france if you dont want to be treated like a horse. |
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worst airline ever,
Apr 18, 2007
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reviewer: Andy
from UK
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whenever you can avoid flying AirFrance do so.
I flew 3 times with AirFrance and 2 of them were a desaster. Flights cancelled, no refund, arrogant staff. Had to take the Eurostar from Paris to London since AirFrance cancelled the flight, allegedly due to weather conditions in London (which was a lie). I never got any refund from them. Nobody picked up the service hotline.
Forget the airline. If you need to travel from UK to France, take the Eurostar. It is very comfortable. |
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 Typical European airline (except for the bread),
Feb 03, 2007
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reviewer: Samuel Takashina
from UK
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Was the first time travelling on Air France so didn't know what to expect. Arrived at the airport to find flight was cancelled due to december fog, but they managed to get me onto the next flight. The cabin crew were friendly and the food was nice.
I was only transitting through Paris and was in a hurry to find a long que at security. so ended up missing the flight to Tokyo. but once again managed to get me onto the next available flight that night. I got a bulkhead seat so I could strech my legs, once again friendly staff, but the food wasnt that nice except for the bread which was outstanding for inflight dining. Avod didnt work the crew tried everything to fix it but no success, so slept all the way to NRT.
I arrived to find my baggage missing, and took a month to recover because the staff didn't understand the diference between navy blue and turquoise.
Flight back was fine except the seat was a kiiler.
The freq' flyer programs very good, no expiring miles and generous rewards so I might fly again just for the miles |
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Nice Economy Seats,
Oct 15, 2006
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reviewer: Markus Dennis
from Switzerland
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Flew on AF this year from BSL-CDG-PHL. The transatlantic flight was good. I really liked the Economy Cabin. Would say that they have the best availble Economy Product at this time.
Food was o.k. nothing to write home about. Flight Attendant's talked english quite well, but seemed to be rather cold and distant.
Return flight out off JFK. I was ill at that time. FA's didn't offer alot of help during the flight. But at CDG weel chair service was organiced. Two tumbs up!!
Would fly AF again. |
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Air France? Never Again! - Zero stars rating needed.,
Sep 24, 2006
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reviewer: Anthony
from UK
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Don't fly AF (Air Chance) if there's a safe alternative.
I've had many shocking experiences over 3 years as an AF Frequent Flyer in Businesss Class: a significant percentage of delays with several of more than 3 hours and two of more than 24 hours; poor lounges; rude and arrogant staff; average meals and wine (much better on BA!); plus three switches to unknown Spanish planes chartered by AF to Cameroon with 'Economy' seats, cold carry-on meals, bad wine and no in-flight entertainment. All of this with little information, no apologies and no offers of compensation.
Even more disgraceful was our treatment regarding airmiles return flights to Tahiti for my wife and myself: booked online in Business Class but downgraded to Economy e-tickets because of a long-standing AF reward system bug; Business Class reinstated by AF's Agent following my complaint (and confirmed in the AF/Amadeus system and by their CheckMyTrip email); only to be told we had always been Economy Class at check-in for our outward flight. We were thus forced to fly 40 hours plus in Economy on because of AF's Business Class overbooking. Worse still, AF has refused to accept responsibility and compensate us according to EC Directive 261/2004. |
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Awful Awful Awful,
Jul 19, 2006
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reviewer: Alana
from Los Angeles, CA
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| We were waitlisted on our return flight from CDG to LAX. We waited for about an hour and had to rush the counter when they finally announced our flight. Seats were given in no priority so it didn't matter who checked in first. When we finally arrived on the plane we sat on the ground for over an hour and there were empty seats when we took off, so the waitlist thing was pointless. The food was terrible and made me sick. There was a strong, unpleasent smell coming from the bathrooms, and we weren't even that close to them. Most of the flight attendants were rude and found my requests for food and medication amusing. Worst flight I've ever been on, and I travel a lot. Not worth the money. |
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Rude and unhelpful,
Mar 04, 2006
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reviewer: Neil
from UK
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Flew Air France from LHR to JNB in December 2005.
Worst flight experience I've ever had. Complete mess at check in (two desks out of the entire bank open, despite queue literally stretching out of the door) meant that we finally got to check in after over 2 hours in the queue, to be greeted by rude staff complaining we were late (having arrived nearly 3 hours before the flight). Had the pleasure of having to pay excess baggage (to some more surly individuals) because refused to allow a violin as an extra hand luggage item, which meant 5 kg hand luggage bag had to go in the hold (saw one person charged for being 3 kilos over).
They then insisted we send a sports back oversized luggage (which I’ve travelled with without problems on many other airlines), which they subsequently failed to get onto our flight, so we paid for it only to pick it up in time from the airport at the other end just in time for our return. Staff curt and rude throughout (my wife told to run as we were holding up the flight - their fault - despite being heavily and obviously pregnant).
Wrote very polite letter on return to explain our concerns, and the response was basically “unlucky”.
Awful airline - will NEVER fly them again.
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