OK, maybe there are worse airports... Mogadisho International? Baghdad? But my god is CDG an appauling mess. I must admit i don't traverse it often, but found myself there yesterday connecting from an AF Europe flight to an AF TATL flight into IAD. Delta relevance here - i was considering going back through CDG on DL metal in the future, but my experience yesterday has thrown me.. here's what happened:

1). Intra-Europe (from MUC) flight comes in a parks at remote stand 235 - 4 miles (exaggeration) from the airport, and we are bussed (after deplaning in the rain) to terminal 2D. I ask where the transit busses or corridor is, and the lady says upstairs with typical french indifference. I follow the signs saying "Conveyances" (Transit). In following the signs, the last sign I saw said go right - and I did... right to being back outside the secure area. I legged it to the other terminal (after looking at AF's confusing CDG diagram in their magazine).

I then had to go back through immigration, security and was also one of the random screenees at security. Another mile long walk to another bus which then took 10 mins to go to what looked like a cargo ramp about 2 miles from the terminal to board the 777.

So my question is: Does CDG require all incoming passengers to reclear security? Some I have heard say yes, but this seems ridiculous that a airport of this size wouldn't cater to transit passengers. The signs sucked. Presumably there are transit mechanisms, but not clearly marked - and by the time I tried to figure it out, I was outside the secure area. Crap.

2). My last rant/question involves AF/Skyteam on-time operations. On Delta, say at ATL or anywhere else, they have a set period of time at which they close the gate, close the boarding door - and when the published time to leave is 10:30, then they go at 10:30. If you are connecting and are weathered in, late, missed it,.. tough luck.

Yesterday after my triathlon to get to this 777 which was parked in Lyon (or so it seemed), the captain comes on the horn and announces we are gong to wait for a plane coming in from Athens which has a bunch of Passengers for this flight. So we waited for 1:15 and finally left. What the )@#!*??? Does AF simply just decide when they want to leave, or do they even adhere to their schedule. BA, DL, CO, AA< UA, VS and most others do it properly - what's the deal with AF ... AND are there other skyteam partners who behave this way??

Well.. at least by flying into IAD from CDG, the age and quality of the airports wasn't far apart!