Air France Frequence Plus - Has the tide turned? Perhaps they do care after all...

I suppose my expectations are very low with hundreds of short/medium haul flights over the years - if the plane takes off and lands (preferably in the right city and more or less on time) then I'm happy. Yes, service levels dropped around 2005, but they have become pretty consistent over the most recent years.

But now, I have had three unusally pleasant experiences in a row last week - is it a coincidence, or have they decided that maybe customers are important after all?

1) Monday last week missed my flight from the UK to France, entirely my fault (for a very stupid reason). Despite having an extremely cheap, non-modifiable, ticket they happily re-booked me on the next flight with no penalty and without my asking - WOW

2) Tuesday last week CDG-MXP, sitting in a crowded exit row, the stewardess came to explain how the door thing works and noticing that there were three of us told me that there were two seats available in row 23 if I would prefer (which I did). After Coffee/Tea service the guy in front of me was fully reclilned whilst I was working on my laptop and another stwardess asked if, given that the breakfast service was over, I'd like to move up to Busines to be more comfortable - I declined to stay close to my hand luggage (there was only 20 minutes left). Then in Milan at the door of the plane upon leaving I was wished "Bonne Journee Monsieur FR", I almost fell down the steps in surprise and was in a good mood all day!

3) Thursday LIN-CDG, upgraded to Tempo Challenge at the gate, again, cheap ticket and Economy wasn't full.

Small things I know, but three in a row, and the small things do make a difference - I hope this is a sign of things to come. Anybody else notice improvements of late?

But now, I have had three unusally pleasant experiences in a row last week - is it a coincidence, or have they decided that maybe customers are important after all?

I would say chance. Glad to know anyway this can happen. I also personaly have shared the 3 experiences you mention in the past months.

1) Monday last week missed my flight from the UK to France, entirely my fault (for a very stupid reason). Despite having an extremely cheap, non-modifiable, ticket they happily re-booked me on the next flight with no penalty and without my asking - WOW


Probably the flight was overbooked and they wanted to "thank" the no-show you were. Nevertheless, I do not know how they were able to handle the rebooking in the system with a non-refundable ticket.

Well, I must admit that on every AF flight I have taken this year (and there have been quite a number of flights i have taken - mostly EU-Asia flights), flight attendants have always been very polite and very customer-minded. I even got a free upgrade to la Première on my latest trip from SIN to CDG. Overall, I personally feel AF cabin staff are more polite than KLM's.

after 3 years of platinum, i still wait my first upg to tempo Challenge or business within europe
Curiously , the one and only upg i ever got was on an award flight HGK-CDG!

otherwise i noticed since a couple of flights, a welcome MR bebert when boarding , the FA noticing my status

Related to OP, i had a cheapo 100eur CDG-LIS (i arrived late due to RER wild strike) rebooked to the next flight for free. But it took some time to have the employee asking her supervisor to come and look at my case! But they went beyond the border for me.

actually, the AF rules , even if not really nice sometimes, are enforced and they know, from time to time, please their best customers. So i do not complain: i have what i paid.
Reliability is the first step of sustainability!

Hi all,

Having avoided AF for a while, I had to take a roundtrip to SYD last week, on a K fare ...

No special treatment whatsoever, not a single notice of a Plat being aboard. Granted, these were packed flights, but no change in experience as compared to a few months ago for me.

Cheers,

GenevaFlyer

Hi everyone. I wanted to share this with you. I just flew CDG-BCN-CDG in Y and I'm FB plat. On CDG-BCN, the flight was an A321 packed in Y, almost empty in Tempo Challenge (may be 5 or 6 pax in 6 or 7 rows) and quite well filled in C. The crew has been really great. One FA followed a few minutes after by the chief purser came to greet me and told me that they were very pleased to have me on board as a valuable customer and that I don't have to hesitate if I have anything to say. Service was simple as it was outside of meal time but very professional (a FA came after the service to ask me if I wanted something else :)) So I thought that I may have an opportunity to discuss with them and tell them what's going wrong at AF right now, in my opinion. So I joined the FA who offered me this opportunity and the chief purser came also immediately to participate to the discussion. I said that I still trust AF but that I felt that they were going in a very hazardous direction. I emphasized mainly the so-called improvements of FB april's fool and the sardine can seating in the B777 and saying that they really need AF management understand that they are making very big mistakes on a customer point of view. Our discussion lasted about 15 min They felt very interested & concerned. They thanked me and promised that they will report our discussion. Yesterday (so just a few days after this flight), I received a letter from AF customer service. In summary, this letter says that the crew reported them our conversation and that they are thanking me for my remarks which they will do their best to take them into account to improve their service. Regarding FB, they say that they regret that the recent changes were disappointing me :rolleyes: and that my remarks have been forwarded to the appropriate people.

So, we'll see if it will be useful but it was worth to try and in any case, this crew was a great one and I had an excellent flight thanks to them.

travelled cdg-rio yesterday (managed my connect fine), had chance for a quick smoke and met a silver card holder sitting upstairs on the 747 whilst i was sat at the back with a group of 13 year olds! i had even asked many times to be moved up there!

not impressed at all!

Well, I must admit that on every AF flight I have taken this year (and there have been quite a number of flights i have taken - mostly EU-Asia flights), flight attendants have always been very polite and very customer-minded. I even got a free upgrade to la Première on my latest trip from SIN to CDG. Overall, I personally feel AF cabin staff are more polite than KLM's.

Yes AF crew are much more polite in my experience too. Never had a bad experience with AF crew. But as for KLM...its mixed Had a really great example of this back in May. Was flying back from Montréal with KL I needed to use the bathroom, and asked the stewardess if i could please pass. She was giving out drinks and was about three rows from somewhere should could pull in her cart. She said no because I would not fit!!!!!!!!!!:eek:

I obviously wasnt asking to squeeze through the 3cm between the cart and the seat, i was asking to to take ten seconds to pull in the cart and let me pass.

Needless to say, having finally made it to the bathroom, I decided discuss the issue with her purser.

But now, I have had three unusally pleasant experiences in a row last week - is it a coincidence, or have they decided that maybe customers are important after all?

I've noticed slight improvements too. Maybe it's just luck, but apart from a an op-up from a cheapo Y fare to C at the boarding gate (C and not Tempo Challenge, although there were several free places in the latter) in a LIS-CDG flight, AF crew members seem friendlier and more attentive to pax status'.
Additionally, in that flight, I was the only C pax with status. All the other pax were asked whether they wanted to become FB members, explained the basic rules of the programme and handed in a form to fill in.