Originally Posted by
uclacolumbiaunc
as far as I know, there is no transit area at TBIT in LAX for passengers who travel from a non-US country to another non-US country.
In the past, Air New Zealand had negotiated a special arrangement with the US authorities such that people on NZ1 (LHR-LAX-AKL) and NZ2 (AKL-LAX-LHR) that are transiting could avoid the immigration process - but they still needed to get off the plane.
This is no longer the case - though NZ does give "Transit Cards" to its transit passengers on these flights, presumably so that they can demonstrate their entitlement to follow the transit path. For these NZ passengers, their luggage remains on the plane so they do not need to worry about that - but this may not be the case for other same-plane-transit passengers, such as AF PPT-LAX-CDG.
Whether Air France has anything similar in place for its (presumably far fewer) transit passengers, I don't know. But you can expect that you will have to speak to a USBCP official, and you will have to clear security at LAX.
Hopefully someone else will be along with recent personal experience. But I wouldn't worry - AF is not going to leave you and any other transiting passengers behind.
The second page in
this file seems to suggest that all transit pax clear the "normal" main CBP point, but then loop back to the airside departures area, rather than following the arrivals path to baggage reclaim.