Location: Seat 1A, Juice pretty much everywhere, Mucci des Coins Exotiques
Posts: 14,918
Quote:
Originally Posted by creber
When I am sitting at some damp airport 8,000 kilomteres away from home, not able to tell my kid when daddy is coming home, just because the French pilots are the only ones in the entire world (!)to think that accepting an ICAO regulation is below their dignity, then a Gallic shrug doesn't get me anywhere (and the depending on where I am, the wine may be terrible or not be on offer at all). When then finally the crew graciously lowers itself to let me on board and fulfill their transportation contract in exchange for the thousands of EUR I have paid for my ticket, I suppose I must take it with a shrug as well that I am sitting in a non-functioning seat whilst AF employees (in uniform) laze in a functioning seat, that I have to crumble my coat into a dirty overhead bin only because the wardrobe is for their own stuff, that I have to wait until being served glorified toothpaste as "dinner" because they first are busy preparing a full hot dinner for themselves. Maybe I should even be thankful that they do anything at all for their paying customers, and not expect anything either, such as replying to letters sent to customer service.
I am all for relaxing and taking things with a shrug. But the widespread attitude at Air France where they make the customer feel that anything they do is an exceptional favour and not a service that can be expected is nothing that I am willing to put away with a shrug. That attitude is widespread in any customer-related job in France. One often gets a feeling that people feel that it's below themselves to provide service.
I earn top frequent flyer status on all 3 alliances and fly most all the airlines in each alliance. In other words, I spend a lot of time on airplanes of many nations and companies. And I just don't see any justification that AF is worse than any EU or US airlines. Sure the Asians are better, but we all know that.
I almost never have rude service on AF. Maybe it is because I am very polite to them? There are moments when I could complain, but that happens on every airline. KL, LH, SR, SK, AY, BA, AZ, and of course all the USA airlines. These moments are mostly inexcusable, but what are you going to do about it? Move to Asia?
And as a frequent flyer, and Flyertalk member, you really shouldn't get caught by a strike, right? We all knew about this in advance. I switched my travel to BA and SNCF. There are lots of choices for how to get from point A to point B. I did the same during the LH strike and when BA first tried to move to T5 at LHR.
As for food, I long ago gave up eating on Euro short haul flights. Back in the 90's the food was great. But none of the airlines offer good food now so I eat before and after flying. That saves me a lot of disappointment.
Moderator: Flying Blue (Air France & KLM), France and TravelBuzz!
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Paris, France, AF F+ Rouge pour toujours, Flying Blue whatever, LH nobody, HHonors Diamond, SPG Plat, formerly proud SCC Executive, now IC Royal Ambassador, hungry BA Gold in CE
Posts: 7,361
Just a gentle reminder that criticism based on national origin (French, Italian, U.S. ...), however courteous it may be, is not within the scope of FlyerTalk. Thanks for your understanding.
Programs: FB Plat, MM FT and moving up in the MM charts
Posts: 562
Greetinx from the Schengen lounge in AMS. Just passed through CDG 2F. Seems they have it reasonably under control this time. Lots of "cancelled flight" desks with not too long queues. No sign of chaos or overheated people. And staff that seems to stay calm friendly and helpfull despite the bad news messages they are dealing with! Probably much more staff dealing with the strike than previous time.
I earn top frequent flyer status on all 3 alliances and fly most all the airlines in each alliance. In other words, I spend a lot of time on airplanes of many nations and companies. And I just don't see any justification that AF is worse than any EU or US airlines.
Name me any other European or US company other than Alitalia and the old United where employees get better treatment than full fare premium pax.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stimpy
I almost never have rude service on AF. Maybe it is because I am very polite to them? There are moments when I could complain, but that happens on every airline. KL, LH, SR, SK, AY, BA, AZ, and of course all the USA airlines. These moments are mostly inexcusable, but what are you going to do about it? Move to Asia?
You miss the point. I didn't say they're ruder on AF (and BTW I almost never have rude service from them either. Maybe because I am polite to them?) I said that they place their private comfort over that of pax more ostensibly than other airlines. Has nothing to do with rudeness, but about an attitude to customers, customer service, one's own work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stimpy
And as a frequent flyer, and Flyertalk member, you really shouldn't get caught by a strike, right? We all knew about this in advance. I switched my travel to BA and SNCF. There are lots of choices for how to get from point A to point B. I did the same during the LH strike and when BA first tried to move to T5 at LHR.
Sorry if the grammatical form I chose made you believe that I was referring to myself being stuck far away. It was not, because I agree that for you and me, well informed, savvy and with status on several airlines to leverage when it comes to finding a backup option things might work out - although even that might mean changing work meetings, longer travel or getting home late only because of a silly strike. But we find our way.
But what about the person not informed (just read some posts in this thread about people who only found out through FT), or who cannot simply swtich to another carrier because their employer booked them on a cheap ticket not usable on another airline, or do not have a status on another airline to get a seat on an overbook alternative connection, or who are in a place where there is little other choice (some of the African destinations), or who are family with little children traveling, or who have a medical situation which makes stressful waiting/changing/hoping not much easier - are they supposed to take with a Gallic shrug the fact that the French pilots are the only ones in the world opposing the possibility to work longer?
Quote:
Originally Posted by stimpy
As for food, I long ago gave up eating on Euro short haul flights. Back in the 90's the food was great. But none of the airlines offer good food now so I eat before and after flying. That saves me a lot of disappointment.
You miss the point again. This is not about the quality of food - although arguably the catering on shorthaul C class flights in Europe is worse on AF than on LH, BA, OS, LX and some others. It is about the fact that employees get served relatively lavish meals whilst feeding cheapo crap to passengers. And they don't even realize that something could be off there. It's that attitude of shamelessly providing good service to oneself and not caring about pax which I haven't found anywhere else in the developed world. Or have you?
Thus, you resigning to the fact that the crews eat well but you as a passenger don't, and therefore you taking the time before and after flights (great if you always find the time) does not make my observation of a gap between service-for-crews and service-for-pax wrong. You implicitly confirm it, otherwise you wouldn't have to resort to eating on the ground.
Are there other countries where employees fight for their rights by going on strike? Sure. Are these strikes a pain for pax? Absolutely. Is there less than stellar customer service in other European countries? Yep. But there are only few countries where strike is used as the means of first response to miniscule changes in work environment. Few are the countries where infrastructure providers handle the impact on their customers so badly. And I can't think of anywhere where it's perceived as normal that employees comfort is more important than that of customers.
And I don't buy the argument that all of that is needed to have a superior quality of life. Quite on the contrary, I'd argue that quality of life in France would be even better without those hassles.
Moderator: Flying Blue (Air France & KLM), France and TravelBuzz!
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Paris, France, AF F+ Rouge pour toujours, Flying Blue whatever, LH nobody, HHonors Diamond, SPG Plat, formerly proud SCC Executive, now IC Royal Ambassador, hungry BA Gold in CE
Posts: 7,361
Reminder
I have had to remove posts that were off topic. Please let's try to keep on topic and avoid characterization based on national origin. Comments judged to be off-topic will be removed and it would be unfortunate to have to close this thread. Thanks for your understanding.
I have had to remove posts that were off topic. Please let's try to keep on topic and avoid characterization based on national origin. Comments judged to be off-topic will be removed and it would be unfortunate to have to close this thread. Thanks for your understanding.
Jouy31
AF/KL co-moderator
Hello!
I believe it is now November 17 in France. Is the strike over or does it continue until 11/17 at 11:59 PM? I would love to be able to fly AF on November 18!
Moderator: Flying Blue (Air France & KLM), France and TravelBuzz!
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Paris, France, AF F+ Rouge pour toujours, Flying Blue whatever, LH nobody, HHonors Diamond, SPG Plat, formerly proud SCC Executive, now IC Royal Ambassador, hungry BA Gold in CE
Posts: 7,361
Quote:
Originally Posted by HRHCyndy
Hello!
I believe it is now November 17 in France. Is the strike over or does it continue until 11/17 at 11:59 PM? I would love to be able to fly AF on November 18!
France faces a week of disruption from transport and public sector strikes as unions wage a number of separate campaigns against President Nicolas Sarkozy's reforms.
I'm flying on AF on skyteam awards ticket on Dec 10 Ewr to Cdg to Bom, should I be worried about this stirke? Should I call skyteam for back up plans?
Any advice would be helpful.
I believe it is now November 17 in France. Is the strike over or does it continue until 11/17 at 11:59 PM? I would love to be able to fly AF on November 18!
Thanks!
Remember that if an ac does not depart from CDG (say to HKG) on Nov 17, it wont be able to return on the 18th. Also crews might not be positioned in outstations. Even if strikes end, longhaul schedules will be a bit messy for a couple of days.
My friend from Athens who arrived yesterday to visit me in Paris wouldn't say the same... She came in on an AF (ad-hoc) chartered ...Clickair plane . She told me that this Clickair (A320) plane made a terrible noise during taxiing on the runway, while the pitch wasn't exactly stellar...
They used a Clickair plane for the mid-day flight (cancelled today!) for the first three days of the strike, I flew on regular AF metal. Off topic: My son (not yet 30) who lives in Barcelona just loves Clickair. This shows how age-dependent airline preferences are
I was happy to be able to fly home on time from Nice to Paris on Saturday night on one of about 50% of the flights that was maintained, on a BAe 146 operated by WDL Cologne, a charter. Actually seeing that charter flight crew which gave only adequate service (funny to hear a German crew offer the Air France catering "salé ou sucré") made me appreciate even more the professionalism of Air France crews. The purser on the charter flight was also impressed once on the ground, telling the manager on the ground she'd never seen so many people meet a plane (there were about 10 Air France staff waiting to whisk away the short connections to long-haul flights). So just good luck I guess but I wasn't at all affected by the strike, other than having booked and cancelled backup train plans.
Location: Seat 1A, Juice pretty much everywhere, Mucci des Coins Exotiques
Posts: 14,918
Quote:
Originally Posted by creber
Name me any other European or US company other than Alitalia and the old United where employees get better treatment than full fare premium pax.
For starters, KLM is one of the worst in the particular area of employees, family of employees, and friends of employees getting bumped up to business class on holiday trips while Platinum frequent flyers stay back in economy. This practice goes back before the AF purchase so you can't blame it on AF. Also friends and family continue to do cockpit visits while the rest of us have been banned.
Then let's take BA, where also the pilots get to ride up in F and bump paying passengers if needed. I think it is somehow different than UA, but I don't know the details. And in both cases it has been the FA's who complained to ME about this. I'm sure if you look around on the various forums here you will find bitter complaints from many people about their favorite airline.
As for AF and this food issue, I don't find it that difficult to accept. AF management has decided to reduce costs and that has impacted the food they serve us. While I certainly wish we had better food, it is just one of many disagreeable things about flying in Europe these days. All the airlines have reduced their service. On certain legs, one airline might have better food than another. For instance, BA business class serves a half-way decent breakfast on morning flights in and out of LHR. KLM, which in general has even worse food than AF, offers a surprisingly good business class dinner on the long ATH-AMS evening flight.
But they have all reduced food and cheapened the alcohol choices. This is a business operations decision which is entirely different than employee issues. Employee issues are often governed or impacted by labor contracts. So you can't really compare the two. They are worlds apart in business terms, but unfortunately come to face each other in the cabin. And what the AF FA told you is the basic truth. They run several flights in a row and don't have the opportunity to step out for a proper meal. You on the other hand, at least have the possibility to eat before or after the flight in a restaurant. The problem for those of us who are harried business travelers, is that we don't always have time to eat before or after a flight. Sometimes we connect to another flight and hope for time in the lounge (BA F lounge at LHR if we are lucky). So us few are really impacted on those heavy travel days, but it is clear to the airline economists that we are the minority and reducing food options hasn't impacted their business much. I really wish that all Euro airlines should re-think this and improve business class food offerings, but again, this is a completely different issue than employee food.
Reminder
Or its will might to continuation during pilots is still on strike.
AF 488 CDG - St. Maarten on 17 Nov 08
. She told me that this Clickair (A320) plane made a terrible noise during taxiing on the runway, while the pitch wasn't exactly stellar...
