Originally Posted by San Gottardo

AA flies the route on its 772. Very pleasant seats, the same (more or less) as Air France BEST. The rest is of course the kind of stuff you get on US-based carriers: obsese and slightly over-familiaristic FAs, absolute rubbish food (make sure you eat at the Cathay lounge in Paris before boarding), very poor snack/in-between meals offering. Basically not a premium product, except for the seat.

Depending on what fare you find on AF, you may find that LX costs only marginally more or sometimes even less - in First. Which is a treat, despite it being back-tracking. But the transfer time in ZRH is quite short I believe and in CDG you can turn up quite late (unlike a departure from 2E on AF) so that you're actually not adding lots of time to the journey.

BA not only has the crowded cabin, it also has the horrible transfer experience in London.

Interesting what you say about IB. In the recent past I only flew them once on a trans-Atlantic flight so I have no data points about their reliability.