Originally Posted by
kthomas
In order:
1) This was a rebooking in special circumstances from a DL routing. The AF phone agent described it as an "open suite" in comparison to available seating on a later flight. YMMV.
2) Almost all the middle seats in the first 4 rows were occupied on a nearly full flight. YMMV.
3) I would normally expect crew to enforce at least some priority for premium cabin customers to offboard before customers in the rear, though it is hardly always the case. Again, YMMV.
1) note that if you called in the U.S. or Canada, calls to AF are handled by DL, which might explain the confusion. If you called in Europe or Israel and thus got an AF agent then all I can say is that you spoke to someone grossly incompetent.
2) makes no sense. If people sat in those rows are booked in C (whether paid or award) they certainly should claim compensation and will get it. I've never seen this happen before.
3) I think it's the same with every airline in the world: long haul plane=galley between cabins=staff stand to protect the priority disembarkation of pax in premium cabins. AF does it as well as anyone. Short haul plane=there is really nowhere for crew to stand without disturbing pax disembarkation and they thus don't. Again I can't really think of exceptions except possibly on A321s which have crew sat mid Cain for take off and landing but no such thing on the A320s AF uses on the TLV route. Business is at the front nearest the door so the assumption is they can go out first without needing too much help (ie don't let pushers at the back force their way)