CDG was indeed a mess this past Sunday. I was on an afternoon BA flight to LHR. I had never seen such chaos at a BA counter - it took 45 minutes to reach check-in in the BA Gold/Club Europe line! The delay was explained to be the result of both the snow on 4 January and morning fog in London on 5 January. Unfortunately, the normal efficiency of BA does not seem to extend to desk staff at CDG. Agents took frequent breaks (even if there was a long line standing in front of their desk) and noone bothered to even attempt some sort of organization of the chaos at elite check-in area.

As baggage and further delays - the CDG baggage handlers went on strike for 1 or 2 hours on the morning of 5 January. Throughout the rest of the day, they continued to work slowly or not at all in a show of "solidarity for industrial action" (these are the words our pilot used). Our pilot was very upset and offered repeated apologies.

My BA flight, which was scheduled to leave at 3:10, left after 5 pm. It took more than two hours (but at least two hours, since I sat on the plane for that long at the gate!) for them to load the luggage. My friend watched the baggage handlers from her window seat and commented on their seeming lack of initiative and frequent time-outs.