Air France Frequence Plus - Improvement on Longhaul J

As stated in the menu thread, I just flew from HKG. I had not flown on AF J for a long time and my previous flight used NEV4 seats.

- I found the food/wine offering onboard to be improved and quite competitive for J. That is nice.

- I liked the skypriority arriving at CDG2E. Two guys checked access and we were directed to four dedicated booth with zero waiting time. The regular lines had a dozen of pax waiting at each booth. There is no skypriority at HKG, but that is true of all airlines (even CX). Anyway security is very efficient and speedy there, and as HK residents I go through immigration by automatic gates. That being said, there is a long walk to get to the train at 2E, then a long walk to get to the exit. No fun with kids. It took me some 20 minutes from the plane to the taxi line with no checked luggage and no wait at immigration.

Now the no-improvement list:
- The AF lounge at HKG is still dismal. Food/drinks awful (e.g. no orange juice, just tomato or apple, the cheapest champagne and wines you can find,..). There are eight seats reserved for F pax with paper sheet indicating the 77W seat number; that's the F lounge.

- But the main and formidable non-improvement is the NEV2 seat which is the most awful angled lie-flat in the sky (LH is definitely better). NEV3 is a major improvement over back-pain NEV2. NEV4 too. It is hard to decide which is worse/better of NEV3 or NEV4, but antique NEV2 is dismal. Since AF is retrofitting rapidly its J seats, why have they not started with the old NEV2? I had avoided AF but was "forced" to take them. I will never run that risk again until they have flat beds consistently. Other things are details compared to poor sleep before work and back pains.

- The AF lounge at HKG is still dismal. Food/drinks awful (e.g. no orange juice, just tomato or apple, the cheapest champagne and wines you can find,..). There are eight seats reserved for F pax with paper sheet indicating the 77W seat number; that's the F lounge.

I think many long haul AF outstation lounges are dismal. Nice example: IAH has a seprate KLM and AF lounge. I've experienced both of them recently. The KL lounge is much better, and better in many ways, not just in details!

As stated in the menu thread, I just flew from HKG. I had not flown on AF J for a long time and my previous flight used NEV4 seats.

- I found the food/wine offering onboard to be improved and quite competitive for J. That is nice.

- I liked the skypriority arriving at CDG2E. Two guys checked access and we were directed to four dedicated booth with zero waiting time. The regular lines had a dozen of pax waiting at each booth. There is no skypriority at HKG, but that is true of all airlines (even CX). Anyway security is very efficient and speedy there, and as HK residents I go through immigration by automatic gates. That being said, there is a long walk to get to the train at 2E, then a long walk to get to the exit. No fun with kids. It took me some 20 minutes from the plane to the taxi line with no checked luggage and no wait at immigration.

Now the no-improvement list:
- The AF lounge at HKG is still dismal. Food/drinks awful (e.g. no orange juice, just tomato or apple, the cheapest champagne and wines you can find,..). There are eight seats reserved for F pax with paper sheet indicating the 77W seat number; that's the F lounge.

- But the main and formidable non-improvement is the NEV2 seat which is the most awful angled lie-flat in the sky (LH is definitely better). NEV3 is a major improvement over back-pain NEV2. NEV4 too. It is hard to decide which is worse/better of NEV3 or NEV4, but antique NEV2 is dismal. Since AF is retrofitting rapidly its J seats, why have they not started with the old NEV2? I had avoided AF but was "forced" to take them. I will never run that risk again until they have flat beds consistently. Other things are details compared to poor sleep before work and back pains.

U call that improvement? Seriously the catering is crap when compared to CX. I also got forced to take AF.

Since when does AF have flat beds? I had the sloping beds but was told they were the upgraded ones. With the footrest built into the shell in front. Seriously CX had these seats 10 years ago and they were even more comfortable

On my last flight in J a couple of weeks ago I noticed to my surprise that the white wine, normally not exactly one of AF's strengths, was pretty good. Maybe there is some improvement on the catering front indeed. Let's hope it wasn't just good luck.

U call that improvement? Seriously the catering is crap when compared to CX. I also got forced to take AF.

Since when does AF have flat beds? I had the sloping beds but was told they were the upgraded ones. With the footrest built into the shell in front. Seriously CX had these seats 10 years ago and they were even more comfortable

I fly CX J/F extensively, and several times a year to CDG. My sample of recent AF J is limited. As I said before, I would not rank my recent experience below CX. CX has recently cut down on wines while AF (who had the worst J wines) seems to have improved and better than CX based on that single AF flight. Food, I would rank equal (maybe thanks to your advice to avoid the shrimps). Of course, service is more attentive on CX during the whole flight and they immediately respond to the call button, which is great when you are stuck with the meal table.

Seats: Fully agreed. The old CX angled seats were better than the current AF seats indeed. Yeah, the NEV4 seat that you describe is the one that is currently being delivered on new planes and retrofitted on old plane; a disgrace compared to flat beds. Light (so fuel efficient) but AF is dearly paying the mistake of such a poor seat compared to competition.
When I said "until AF have flat beds consistently", I did not mean that they have started to install flat beds. I meant that I will wait until they have flat beds across the fleet, rather than running the Russian roulette risk of getting the old product in the first years of retrofit.

BTW: the F cabin on AF (8 seats) was completely empty! Except that a couple of young guys slipped in to sleep there shortly after dinner service.

Interesting comparison to CX, but I have never had the opportunity to fly them, for some reason and for the routings I need the fares are horrendously expensive.

That said I also flew long haul AF in J last week and as a pretty much imposed choice, (GVA-) CDG-GRU-CDG (-GVA) and to be fair I was dreading the experience. But just to show how preconceptions can be very wrong sometimes, I found the overall experience much improved from when I abandoned them a couple of years ago.

Flight inbound to CDG took us to 2F which is where the GRU bound flight left from so no hacking all over the airport trying to get my connection, as in the past. Short haul leg was correct as they say. CDG-GRU left bang on time, I declined dinner and slept, service again correct, arrived bang on time too.

Return leg GRU-CDG, check in is shared with KLM and the check in staff were polite and efficient. The AF lounge at GRU is much better than the United lounge used by BA. Aboard, I found the cc service excellent if not superb and totally without the cc attitude typically displayed in the past, which was that you need to understand that you are privileged to be flying AF as opposed to AF being privileged to have you as a customer. Food choice and availability good (I was served what I chose from the menu) and far superior to the slop served on BA. Left on time, arrived on time (2E) and just had to walk through to 2F (a vast improvement from the past) with a 1,5h connection time to get my flight back to GVA. If there was one thing that was a reminder of AF in what I would call the bad old days, it was that we got bussed back from 2F to 2E to get the flight CDG-GVA. AF still can't get that right it seems....

Now one swallow does not an English Summer make as the saying goes, but it was a pleasant surprise.

Enough said. I don't want to get too carried away with rekindled enthusiasm.

If there was one thing that was a reminder of AF in what I would call the bad old days, it was that we got bussed back from 2F to 2E to get the flight CDG-GVA. AF still can't get that right it seems....

During the CDG DO visit to the Hub Control Centre, we were told that this is one of the actions that can help regain five minutes and allow passengers on short connections to make their connections. For example, instead of being parked at 2F upon arrival for your flight to GVA, the aircraft could have been parked at 2E, close to an aircraft departing on a long-haul route, with passengers moving from one flight to the other.

I have had six long haul AF flights this month. On all but one the service was very good. On one flight the chef de cabine was exceptional. While the wine was marginally better (other than the champagne which has been Philipponat on all flights to USA I think) I really found the catering quite poor. Last night from Atlanta the choices were not very good. Generally it is a little better ex-CDG but the Guy Martin choices recently have been poorly executed (especially the chicken and mango sauté!?). One cannot expect too much I guess in these straitened times. Expanded IFE would be nice as well. If you have many lc flights in one month there really isn't enough variety on AF. On this EK/SQ are better. KL is also good oddly.

During the CDG DO visit to the Hub Control Centre, we were told that this is one of the actions that can help regain five minutes and allow passengers on short connections to make their connections. For example, instead of being parked at 2F upon arrival for your flight to GVA, the aircraft could have been parked at 2E, close to an aircraft departing on a long-haul route, with passengers moving from one flight to the other.

Not sure if it is the same thing that I am talking about but I must say that I still prefer to have the aircraft parked at the 'wrong' departure terminal than at the 'wrong' arrival terminal. That is, when rotation means that the flight arrives from LHR (2E) and then goes to GVA (2F) I must prefer the plane to park at 2E (so that passengers arrive as they should) than, as has more often been the case in my experience, at 2F (meaning that everybody needs to wait to be bussed and waste much time potentially missing connections. So if this is a 'change' in that direction I would consider this a good one.

brunos, what about the toilet paper? Has it been replenished? ;)

brunos, what about the toilet paper? Has it been replenished? ;)

Cannot tell, did not need it :)
Toilets were clean, But no hydrating lotion for my beautiful skin.

But no hydrating lotion for my beautiful skin.
What a disappointment ! I hope you complained :D

Cannot tell, did not need it :)
Toilets were clean, But no hydrating lotion for my beautiful skin.

People keep stealing them from the toilets... On every flight at least one set disappear from the washrooms and can't be replaced as we are only provided with one set per toilet...
Fellow passengers have to learn to stop stealing otherwise AF will stop putting these items in the restrooms.
We used to remove the caps so that people would stop stealing them. Than some customers complained that it didn't look nice and they felt like AF were treating them like robbers etc... We were ordered to leave the caps on again and the cosmetics are dissapearing again... Shame really...

People keep stealing them from the toilets... On every flight at least one set disappear from the washrooms and can't be replaced as we are only provided with one set per toilet...
Fellow passengers have to learn to stop stealing otherwise AF will stop putting these items in the restrooms.
We used to remove the caps so that people would stop stealing them. Than some customers complained that it didn't look nice and they felt like AF were treating them like robbers etc... We were ordered to leave the caps on again and the cosmetics are dissapearing again... Shame really...

The attitude of some flyers is indeed shameful.
In my case, I went to the toilets before takeoff to change into my nice CX First class pajamas (yes pax are allowed to take them after the flight). And there was already only one bottle of some sort of cologne. No kind of skin lotion. No time for a thief yet.

The attitude of some flyers is indeed shameful.
In my case, I went to the toilets before takeoff to change into my nice CX First class pajamas (yes pax are allowed to take them after the flight). And there was already only one bottle of some sort of cologne. No kind of skin lotion. No time for a thief yet.

Oh I know for the pyjamas ! :D
Concerning the lotions we have two, one make-up removal and one tonic lotion. The one that was still in the restroom was most certainly the tonic lotion.
Was the flight out of CDG or out of an out-station ? If CDG it is abnormal, if out of out-station, most certainly the bottle was stolen on the flight to whereever either by a woman passenger or a male that forgot to buy some present and thought that make-up remover from Clarins would make a good gift !!:D

.......the chef de cabine was exceptional.....

I could just about go as far as to say that for my flight as well....

During the CDG DO visit to the Hub Control Centre, we were told that this is one of the actions that can help regain five minutes and allow passengers on short connections to make their connections. For example, instead of being parked at 2F upon arrival for your flight to GVA, the aircraft could have been parked at 2E, close to an aircraft departing on a long-haul route, with passengers moving from one flight to the other.


Thanks for the explanation JOUY31. Surely that works one way only though - a benefit for those getting off the shorthaul aircraft in CDG and then boarding the longhaul from the same terminal. Cannot the reverse be said to be true stepping off the longhaul in CDG then having to change terminals to take the shorthaul connection?

Also and excuse me as it is slightly OT, but I would be interested to know (if of course you know it) what percentages of AF flights are either "embarquement par bus" or "desembarquement par bus" these days. Certainly, a couple of years ago the number of bus trips to and from the aircraft almost equalled the number of legs I used to fly. And then at least there seemed no rhyme or reason as explanation.

Merci.