First Trip Report on Air France Boeing 787-9

Old Dec 4, 2016, 4:41 am
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First Trip Report on Air France Boeing 787-9

Dear All,

I had the privilege to be on board the ferry flight from Everett to Paris CDG, so without too much doubt I can say this is the first ever Trip Report on an Air France Dreamliner

English: http://flight-report.com/en/report/2...-PAE-Paris-CDG
French: http://flight-report.com/fr/report/2...-PAE-Paris-CDG

Also in the TR section: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...ett-paris.html

Cheers!
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Old Dec 4, 2016, 6:22 am
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Nice !
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Old Dec 4, 2016, 7:09 am
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Thanks for this. ^
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Old Dec 4, 2016, 12:30 pm
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Thank you very much for this. But one very disappointing information is the wifi offer in data volume instead of usage time. And 20 or 200 Mo are just nothing (200 Mo represent just 10-15 min of basic internet surfing on a site like FT containing ads) . What a utter non-sense
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Old Dec 4, 2016, 2:21 pm
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Originally Posted by Goldorak
Thank you very much for this. But one very disappointing information is the wifi offer in data volume instead of usage time. And 20 or 200 Mo are just nothing (200 Mo represent just 10-15 min of basic internet surfing on a site like FT containing ads) . What a utter non-sense
First of all, thanks for this very nice trip report!

But i have to agree with Goldorak, it is an absolute disgrace to offer WiFi based on data volume and not on usage time. At that point i'd rather not see it offered at all as 200Mo (which i imagine will be one of the max packages at a high price point) is used up in no time.
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Old Dec 5, 2016, 12:54 am
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Originally Posted by Goldorak
Thank you very much for this. But one very disappointing information is the wifi offer in data volume instead of usage time. And 20 or 200 Mo are just nothing (200 Mo represent just 10-15 min of basic internet surfing on a site like FT containing ads) . What a utter non-sense
+1: refreshing a Facebook timeline burns at least 1Mo. How many time will one do that on a 9-hour flight?
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Old Dec 5, 2016, 2:35 am
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Thanks for your comments,

I have also strongly discouraged them during the flight to price it as per data usage but they told me it's so expensive that they don't want to take the risk of a "per flight usage".
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Old Dec 5, 2016, 8:15 am
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Nice report, but gosh you'd think for $100 million Boeing would do up the catering a bit.

And yes I think that AF will need to re-think the WiFi pricing policy. Sure there will be corporate flyers who don't care about the price. And I noticed the voucher option and you think that AF salespeople might hand out vouchers to corporate execs. But pricing per Mo means that individuals will not buy WiFi and thus will claim that AF worse than other airlines. It hurts AF's competitive value in the marketplace especially as millennials become the key demographic. IF AF is worried about the cost, then they should cap usage at 1Go or something. And block video streaming if they don't do that already.
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Old Dec 5, 2016, 3:18 pm
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Originally Posted by stimpy
And yes I think that AF will need to re-think the WiFi pricing policy. Sure there will be corporate flyers who don't care about the price. And I noticed the voucher option and you think that AF salespeople might hand out vouchers to corporate execs. But pricing per Mo means that individuals will not buy WiFi and thus will claim that AF worse than other airlines. It hurts AF's competitive value in the marketplace especially as millennials become the key demographic. IF AF is worried about the cost, then they should cap usage at 1Go or something. And block video streaming if they don't do that already.
Excactly. They should just do as DL with GoGo inflight.
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Old Dec 5, 2016, 3:21 pm
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Originally Posted by Goldorak
Excactly. They should just do as DL with GoGo inflight.
Maybe they are waiting on GoGo to come up with a global contract that can be effectuated in France. Perhaps GoGo has no legal standing in France or the EU at this point. Or something like that. And if that is indeed the case, the executives on both sides will not talk about it to anyone. So the people whom the OP spoke to would be unaware.
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Old Dec 5, 2016, 4:16 pm
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Excellent Report!

With regards to the wifi pricing, I had wifi on a CDG-DXB flight earlier this year and the pricing scheme was similar. The only advantage was that the provider (T-Mobile) allows you to connect if you have a wifi account with another provider. In my case, I was able to use my Orange Wifi account to log in and navigate throughout the flight.
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Old Dec 6, 2016, 12:37 pm
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Originally Posted by Leadership
Thanks for your comments,

I have also strongly discouraged them during the flight to price it as per data usage but they told me it's so expensive that they don't want to take the risk of a "per flight usage".
So it's so expensive Delta can offer a global 24h pass for $28, Lufthansa for 17€ and Norwegian for free (Not yet on transatlantic flights though).

Originally Posted by stimpy
Maybe they are waiting on GoGo to come up with a global contract that can be effectuated in France. Perhaps GoGo has no legal standing in France or the EU at this point. Or something like that. And if that is indeed the case, the executives on both sides will not talk about it to anyone. So the people whom the OP spoke to would be unaware.
Maybe. IAG did strike a contract on behalf of Aer Lingus with Gogo in May though for inflight wifi so there must be a solution
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Old Dec 6, 2016, 4:18 pm
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Emirates and Qatar price per volume, the "big pack" is 100 MB. Using an iPad and doing quite some surfing this is sufficient. Using my PC and all the Outlook downloads the 100 MB are used up quite quickly.

Lufthansa, American, Delta have it based on time. Much more relaxing. With all of them you can also use roaming partners such as Orange or Boingo.

For US domestic flights there is something like a 1 year-all-airlines package, which I believe is USD 39 p.m. I had it this year when during a couple of months I was doing many US domestic flights across DL, AA and UA. Quite neat to just log on.

The smartest solution yet I have seen is - believe it or not - Saudia. On a recent flight on their B789 the way it worked was that pax entered their name and flight number on a dedicated mobile app, which gave them a code, which in turn then gave free WiFi access. This code was only given to J class pax.

All these carriers are smart enough to block access to sites like Netflix or the iTunes film store.

Having said that, the prize for the most brainless design of a WiFi service does not go to an airline, but to Eurostar.

Other than that thanks for the Trip Report. VEry exciting, I am obviously curious how you got to travel on the delivery flight.
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Old Dec 6, 2016, 4:53 pm
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SK gives free WiFi to all business class pax. That's a very simple thing to manage.
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Old Dec 7, 2016, 3:06 am
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Originally Posted by stimpy
SK gives free WiFi to all business class pax. That's a very simple thing to manage.
As far as I know, so does Icelandair. And the Saudia solution is exactly that, except that you go through a mobile app to get the code (not sure whether they also can hand out little pieces of paper with a code on in the cabin)
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