brunos

Whatever the reason, the state of unpreparedness is not acceptable. CDG is a major transit airport and this is not the first time that a flight is cancelled or has to return in the evening with a large group of non-visa-holders. Such a world-leading airport should have emergency measures ready for these not-so-infrequent situations. AF is in part responsible because it is the airline using CDG as hub. They have a huge number of transit pax not holding Shengen visas, so what is their contigency plan? Apparently none.

As everyone, I doubt that AF is "racist".

I guess that there must be a good reason for turning back while it appears (from the reoprt) that the flight was more than halfway. But until this reason is known, I feel very bad for those pax that got stranded.

nicolas75

hserus

Umm.. SIN has one, BKK does too .. and various other countries have a system of 'transit visas' for upto 96 hours, so you can spend a day or two resting up, shopping etc before catching your flight home. Those visas aren't extensible under any circumstances. But they do help deal with misconnected and stranded pax just as well as they deal with people who want a day or two shopping on the Champs Elysees, or a quick wine tour.

brunos

Just an additional thought. When AF decided to fly the plane back (It seems to be 4 hours before it actually landed), they would have had plenty of time to alert the immigration authorities to the situation and prepare some cordonned area for the pax in question.

hserus

Racism and AF .. most of it appears to be communication gaps and/or what you'd see as 'typical french behavior' .. perfectly polite / pleasant etc but some other people might find that treatment a bit well.. off-putting. The other issue is that both sides are uncomfortable dealing with comparatively strange accents (british and american accents get understood far easier than zer french version of anglais), and this may translate to a certain stiffness which passes for standoffishness. The same way Europeans might perceive 'normal american behavior' as brash.

And this situation was quite likely complicated by the fact that you tend to get defensive, and even more stand offish, when you are dealing with extremely angry pax you can't possibly help get out landside if you want to .. which translated to 'let's dump them in a room, ignore them and go home, so the problem lands on someone else's head' . Unacceptable, but not racist.

Personally, I liked AF enough to fly them in coach and earn plat .. seats were comfortable, I liked the food (and AF actually had a minibar in the galley with juice, perrier, ice cream etc .. in coach). And a bit of schoolboy french - even bonjour and merci beaucoup - helps.

Petrus

They're French. What did you expect!?
Imagine being stuck in the concrete masterpiece that is CDG1....

JOUY31

Well, granting Schengen visas is governed by common governmental rules that require extensive screening. As mentioned by the representative of an airline that flies into FRA in the thread in the Trip reports forum http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/11740444-post4.html, getting these visas during the night, in less than 24 hours, must have required intense pressure by AF.

The visa problem would, IMHO, unfortunately have been as difficult to solve in any Schengen airport without an airside hotel. (Unless I am mistaken, in some cases, it would not have been enough)

NickB

Indeed, although, to be honest, I am not sure that the result would have been that much different had we been in a Schengen-free world and decision-making rested entirely in the national govt and administration.

It seems to me that the assumption made in several posts that immigration authorities will naturally bend over backwards to accommodate the desires of the local dominant airline, whether in France or in many other places, is wishful thinking.

Like Jouy31, I thought that getting the visas in the time frame they did suggests that AF was on the ball on this.

brunos

I can understand that they can be many excuses, but the end result remains.
According to TR the flight returned at a normal evening hour when a lot of AF flights depart for Asian and other destinations. it is not like it was at 4am. Furthermore, the plane to BOM leaves CDG in the morning and if it was called back, there was plenty of time to plan the emergency situation. My point is not that they should have been granted automatic visa, which no-one should expect, but rather that AF should have cordonned a part of the terminal to be accomodate these pax in better comfort. This has happened to me a couple of times in foreign airports.

NickB

Very fair point (although I suspect that even that would have attracted the same amount of negative publicity, but that is not a reason for not doing it).

Out of curiosity, do we have any idea as to the frequency of such incidents to have some perspective on the scale of the issue?

gottaluvNW

Racism - no
Stupidity and lack of planning - absolutely.

AF wasn't born yesterday - they should have planned around such contingencies. I can tell you that I went through something similar years ago in CDG and it was not pretty. Similarly, when I went through something like this in AMS - it was a breeze. No wonder, CDG gets a lot of flak for transit issues all the time!

San Gottardo

Knowing AF I cannot believe this was a case of racism. AF staff in general are wonderfully open and cosmopolitan. As a matter of fact I also believe that their reputation for bad mastering of foreign languages is grossly exaggerated, at least for cabin staff.

It has nothing to do with racism that visas can't be granted at relatively short notice (even those four hours of anticipation are relatively short notice), simply with the passport a person is carrying. Take the same ethnic Indian and give him a UK passport (for instance), and there wouldn't have been a problem. VIsa rules may be flawed, I don't know, but that is a more fundamental issue which cannot be solved by AF even with four hours of preparation.

Having said that, still knowing AF and ADP, this is just (yet another) example of utter incompetence of properly managing an unplanned situation or to organize anything at all. They are unable to handle pax and planes when snow falls, and they are even unable to deal with a plane that lands 15 minutes early. These people wouldn't be able to organize a bucket of ice cubes on the North Pole. Something like this happening is not a case of racism, it's a case of typical Paris CDG mess, as simple as that.

Whilst the visa issues might have been the same in other airports, I sincerely doubt that the same story with 60 people stuffed in a small room with only 1 bathroom and 15 chairs would have happened in AMsterdam, Stockholm, Munich, Brussels, Frankfurt, etc.

Also, this silly thing of making them go through security is typical CDG. I've seen similar cases where people ARRIVING from Schengen at T1 with final destination Paris needed a wheelchair; because the moving walkway was broken (another Paris specialty), he had to be taken to tarmac level with an elevator; that elevator was leaving from behind security; so he had to go through security, where they made a fuss because he didn't have a boarding pass for a flight leaving from Paris. Making them understand that he was arriving took a lot of effort.

nicolas75

An airport is not exactly a place like any other.

For obvious reasons, no one can cross a zone without authorization. Prefecture de Police defines these rules and is very strict about that. ADP or AF can get heavy fines if they do not respect these measures.

At the launch of the Terminal E, there were some issues with doors opening and letting arriving passengers being mixed with departing passengers. ADP and AF were asked to solve the problem immediately; otherwise the terminal might be closed.

San Gottardo

I love it how you reliably find nice excuses for those instances which clearly are simply matters of either bad organization or stupid layout. There is no rule whatsoever that stipulates a separation of arriving and departing pax if the arriving pax come from a "clean" country. "Clean" countries are, for instance, all the Schengen countries. France is one of the few, if not the only, Schengen country which wants to separate arriving Schengen pax from departing Schengen pax. Why that is the case is beyond me. It is not needed, but just adding another layer of hassle. They have finally decided to change that in some airports.

On top of that, the real issue was not that clumsy layout. It was the fuss the security people created to that wheelchaired pax because he did not have a boarding pass for a flight leaving from Paris. They didn't want to let him into the security zone. They suggested to him to instead walk the stairs and long corridor between the Satellite and the main building - clearly an un-brillant idea when the pax was sitting in the wheelchair precisely because he could NOT walk that way. Not sure what was going on in their head (if anything at all).

Regulations is one thing, and some of them are silly. However, adding another layer of stupidity to silly rules makes the entire thing quite painful. And this is what probably happened to those Indian pax as well: on top of a situation which is difficult and stressful already for both staff and the pax, it would be necessary for everybody involved to use a little common sense. That however seems missing from some Af staff and from certain CDG's security people, as described in that trip report.

brunos

Sorry Nicolas, but excuses, excuses, excuses... When you live abroad, you discover that this is a very French attitude (I am French), while in many other places people tend to try to work hard to find solutions, not excuses.