Oh boy and even in TATL Business Class....
Was rebooked on AF from SFO to DUS on the weekend and had to fly on AF.
That turned out to be worse than expected and to all those who might think about taking AF over KL when it comes to TATL routes in C, let me recommend that KLM is absolutely and without any doubt a no brainer.
Did not find time in the last months to write trip reports at all, but this bad experience motivates enough to stay awake a couple of hours longer to prevent fellow Flyertalkers to take AF...
Just a few highlights early on...
2 persons for check in at SFO for all C / F / elite card holders, a guy next to me waited 20 minutes with me plus ( my guess ) at least 15 more minutes.
All the personel I had to deal with were unfriendly to rude, could not care less and performed their duties, but nothing more, not a single smile or comment like you are welcome for example...being adressed by name seems to be unthinkable...Being greeted by the purser is also out of this world on AF, a no brainer on KL....
Food, which I expected to be superior to KLM ( only thing I thought which would be superior ) was not. You have a choice of appetizers on AF, not on KL and they serve one more course for dinner, so cheese and dessert...
KLM serves cheese as part of dessert ( you could certainly always ask for another dessert, so hardly an disadvantage ) however one you can measure as a quality item. Breakfast however had one course less , the cereals are not existing on AF and no a la carte choice , only for the main dish like on KL.
Upper Deck and the whole C cabin is so cramped and tight, that I would even rank old LH C, the one with the 48 inch pitch to be superior seatwise to AF !!! If a seat is declined even the Asian sitting next to me ( 5 foot 6 , hardly 120 pounds ) could not get out of his seat with me standing in the aisle...Entertainment even inferior to KLM WBC on the old and limited 767 !!!
Comparing CDG with AMS would be blasphemy anyway, but I expected the new parts of T 2 not as filthy and run down like they are...lounge in 2F dirty and run down, had to take a picture of the totally overused and dirty leather chairs, amazing...
AF lost my luggage as KLM always does, so no advantage here either, but one has to state that empirically proven AF loses less luggage than KL, so it is also one small advantage for AF.