I booked a flight from Frankfurt to Montreal on December 23 with Air France. Firstly the flight I was going to take at 10.40 was cancelled which meant that I had to get up much earlier and pay 27 € from my own pocket instead of being able to use the hotel's shuttle service. The flight, AF 1019 (seat 14F) was one hour late as the gate information was only shown 20 minutes before the scheduled departure. I still had about six hours waiting at Paris Charles de Gaulle before I was called for my scheduled flight to Montreal (AF346 Seat 30H). At first the sign said “on time” but changed about 45 minutes before departure to 15 minutes delay then 30 minutes delay. Shortly after 17.00h all passengers were allowed on board.in August I booked a flight for my daughter to Montreal from Frankfurt on British Airways. She was delighted with the flight and food and enthused about the fact each seat had a monitor and she could choose films and tv programmes. On boarding Flight AF 346 I found that the impression given by Air France website that each passenger had an individual monitor was very much misleading, this was only on the Airbus. I saw that Air France has 4 Airbus and 10 of the older 747 so that obviously the chances of individual entertainment are far lower than the idea given.in addition the seat's audio system was very poor and the only channel I could really hear well was the opera! The few other channels which were very faint were of no interest at all! Most messages from the aircrew were hardly audible.
On boarding at 17.00h all passengers were virtually held prisoner in the aircraft. No real information was given apart from the regular announcement of a 30 minute or a further 45 minute delay. This continued until 22.00h when we finally took off. FIVE hours of waiting in the aircraft and the only distraction was the showing of one of the films and the distribution of an aperitif which we would have had anyway later with the evening meal.
On my return journey flight AF 347 (Seat 23B) was also delayed, although by 30 minutes and my subsequent flight (AF 1918 Seat 17A) was postponed so my train seat reservations from Frankfurt were useless as I left more than 3 hours later than planned. The meal which was served on the flight to Paris had probably seen the inside of a microwave for a few seconds as was almost cold!
All in all my my very first flight with Air France was far from satisfactory. Certainly the weather played a role in the delay but the passengers were fobbed off with announcements of 30 minute or 45 minute delays and neither an explanation nor any extra food or drink was offered apart from that aperitif which we did not then have with the meal.
I shall be visiting my daughter again in summer but shall think twice about booking any further flights with Air France if this is the service offered its customers. My daughter has also asked me not to book her return flight at the end of the year with Air France.
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