First time travelling Air France. On our yearly trip to India, its always been Emirates because of quality and then, because of price, Lufthansa. This time, because we booked a couple of months in advance and the prices were eye wateringly high regardless of airline, Air France was the cheapest by a few hundred pounds.
After the journeys and delays etc, have to say that Air France is better than expected. Not their partner Flybe (will come to them at the end).
First of all the service - the ground and on board staff were extremely polite and helpful, always smiling.
No, the children did not receive lots of goodies like Emirates, instead, with a child's meal, they were given a bag of crayons/jigsaws etc.
The food, subjectively was nice - its always good to have Indian food on a plane, yes, it is greasy and you cannot finish it all but nice to see the supari like sachets and the pickle etc. (As you can make out, I love going to India!). The children's meals were well thought out, with French cheese shaped like an ice cream stick, tiny potato cakes, uttapams etc. And, yes, unlimited icecream throughout the flight, the staff kept coming around with sticks, kept the children happy.
Ground staff very sweet to children, talking to them, keeping them entertained while checking in at 4am in Bombay. While going to Bombay, almost the entire crew was male and Vietnamese-French, who were all very nice. Lufthansa, we have always had good experiences with staff, but I have seen other passengers being spoken to badly.
Now the not so nice bits:
The planes both times weren't very clean, never found this with any other airline. There was leftover food in the seat pocket. Bits of biscuit in my toddler's seat. Air France is not a budget carrier, to skimp on cleaning.
Flybe was awful on ground. While checking in, the BHX staff made us shift weight for 2 kgs extra into other suitcases and it was horrible. We were Air France passengers, not Flybe and were nowhere over our total weight. Nasty check in staff, used to dealing with Flybe's budget rules. I fully understand the rules of luggage weight, but the woman would not budge for 2 kgs extra in one suitacse and 12 kgs less in another. Cue lots of opening baggage and moving stuff around. Have travelled with budget airlines before and stuck to luggage rules, this time round, were passengers of Air France.
For this reason only, will never travel or recommend travelling with Air France if Flybe is involved.
Rant over!
After the journeys and delays etc, have to say that Air France is better than expected. Not their partner Flybe (will come to them at the end).
First of all the service - the ground and on board staff were extremely polite and helpful, always smiling.
No, the children did not receive lots of goodies like Emirates, instead, with a child's meal, they were given a bag of crayons/jigsaws etc.
The food, subjectively was nice - its always good to have Indian food on a plane, yes, it is greasy and you cannot finish it all but nice to see the supari like sachets and the pickle etc. (As you can make out, I love going to India!). The children's meals were well thought out, with French cheese shaped like an ice cream stick, tiny potato cakes, uttapams etc. And, yes, unlimited icecream throughout the flight, the staff kept coming around with sticks, kept the children happy.
Ground staff very sweet to children, talking to them, keeping them entertained while checking in at 4am in Bombay. While going to Bombay, almost the entire crew was male and Vietnamese-French, who were all very nice. Lufthansa, we have always had good experiences with staff, but I have seen other passengers being spoken to badly.
Now the not so nice bits:
The planes both times weren't very clean, never found this with any other airline. There was leftover food in the seat pocket. Bits of biscuit in my toddler's seat. Air France is not a budget carrier, to skimp on cleaning.
Flybe was awful on ground. While checking in, the BHX staff made us shift weight for 2 kgs extra into other suitcases and it was horrible. We were Air France passengers, not Flybe and were nowhere over our total weight. Nasty check in staff, used to dealing with Flybe's budget rules. I fully understand the rules of luggage weight, but the woman would not budge for 2 kgs extra in one suitacse and 12 kgs less in another. Cue lots of opening baggage and moving stuff around. Have travelled with budget airlines before and stuck to luggage rules, this time round, were passengers of Air France.
For this reason only, will never travel or recommend travelling with Air France if Flybe is involved.
Rant over!
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