CGRA

.
In which Robuchon did you have it ?
Seems that the taste of the same dish is different frone one rochuon to another, which make sense as they don't have access to same products.

Goldorak

I had it on-board AF P , so not in a Robuchon restaurant.

CGRA

AF P food better than Robuchon restaurant

brunos

Robuchon has some twenty restaurants carrying his name throughout the world. So AF can carry the food from one to another

Goldorak

Dear friends
Olivedel and I just posted, in the TR section of Flyertalk, our trip report of our new very recent trip in P with AF (+ other airlines in Y, J and P) .

And...this trip includes SIN-CDG with the new La Première product !!!

Everything you wanted to know about this fantastic new product, you'll find pictures and answers here
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...-af-new-p.html

Enjoy and feel free to ask us any question

Olivedel and Goldorak

orbitmic

Great TR! ^ The new seats look great and I am very relieved to have your confirmation about the full separation for the middle seats as well as the magnets on the curtains, which sounds great too. The new duvet looks great as well, so it makes for an apparently vastly improved hard product, and of course lounge.

I still feel that the food does not look as good as it should (actually, the cold starters do both ways, but those poor scallops look "flooded" and even I as an amateur cook can manage to keep a coulis a much prettier green than that. As for the mains, I'd venture to suggest that based on descriptions and photos alone, I feel more tempted by the lobster you got on TG on a 2h30 flight than by any of the AF mains on offer onboard). The wine list also looks very uneven with some very tempting bottles but also some which would be more common in J on other airlines.

I also find the handling of the delay consequences when you arrived at HKG sub-par. Frankly, you should not have had to "bargain" for their help nor for them to take charge of the rebooking costs. In effect, if they had business sense, the new tickets and a smile would have awaited you, all ready and in an envelope (well, not the smile) just past the aircraft gate.

JOUY31

Excellent trip report and, at last, a detailed description of the middle seats, as seen from a customer perspective! Thanks.

olivedel

Thanks a lot. We did manage to post it as soon as we could while having busy schedules.
The hard product is really nice, and the service onboard was charming on both La Première flight, even in the packed 9-seat cabin of the A380.

I agree on the scallops. They were subpar, and frankly overcooked. Rubber... but it was the only disappointing dish.

That was the most disappointing part of the experience. P class passengers should be treated very well, and not beg for assistance.
We were shocked to hear from the P attendant that was supposed to drive us to the plane that "Customer Service could reimburse your incidentals, but that would be a pure gesture of godwill as AF is mandated to carry you from point A to point B". Yeah, I know that, but these kind of attentions are easy and cheap to have. They could have proactively what our plans were out of HKG and arrange everything during the night.

orbitmic

[emphasis mine]. Reading this makes me furious. Has AF not learnt anything? It is actually not the goodwill gesture (although I love your Freudian slip of "godwill"!! Might in fact describe it much better!) that shocks me (I'm fine with the airline suggesting it wasn't supposed to but is doing it to be nice although it is not particularly subtle) but the part that truly infuriates me is that notion of not solving problems at the earliest possible opportunity, and allowing a sour taste to develop with the idea that the customer can then complain about it and then it will be compensated by customer service because it is AF's internal procedure:

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honestly, I am starting to lose faith. This was exactly the way I was answered with my cancelled flight problem (in effect what it meant was: "we won't put you on any of the flights with plenty of empty seats so you can fly but don't worry, we first need you to miss your flight and then you can write to customer service and they will deal with you").

Now, you are being answered the same in Hong Kong while they had a freaking 13 hours to prepare everything to make sure that two repeat P passengers, with status, would have the experience of a bad incident not AF's fault (a long delay) superseded by the memory of AF acting like troopers and sorting out everything in the background (the "moments of gratitude" which our friend San Gottardo mentioned multiple times) and that at the immense cost of about €50 per passenger, for tickets that have cost thousands and they don't do it???

Reading this makes me very sad. Not because of the minor inconveniene caused but because it says something about the airline's etos still not changing and still putting AF's internal processes at the heart of the world rather than the passengers.

Again all the sadder that as mentioned before, the hard product looks really excellent.

olivedel

I can tell you that we were not calm when it happened. We were furious to lose one day in Asia because of it, and hearing this kind of statements does not help in making you calm. They know that customer service will cover for prepaid nights for example, especially for P & Plat PAX, so why saying that "they might" ?

I would have like to think that it was an isolated behaviour of one agent, but no one was either able to help with these ferry tickets or get information the day after, before boarding our AF188A flight that was rescheduled.

Zembla

Excellent trip report. Thanks. To me it confirms what I already thought: The new AF P cabin seems to be up there with the best! I'm shocked by the delay treatment though...

orbitmic

Exactly. And no, sadly, as we find out, it occurs over and again...

NickB

I would not be. While the contractual obligation is to carry from A to B, it is also an obligation to carry the passenger on time and the carrier is liable under the Montreal Convention for damage resulting from delay in transportation. While there are limitations and defences available for events outside the control of the airline, it is simply wrong to assert that an airline can simply generally wash its hands of anything after arrival at destination even where the transportation is delayed, even for the most plebeian of passengers traveling in cattle class.

jacob_m

And for those who want some more photos of the new la Première there are a few in this report.

AF F CGK-SIN with the new La Première - a magical experience!

orbitmic

That's actually a very fair point. Let me rephrase in saying that I would have much preferred the airline to have welcomed our two friends with new ferry tickets and a pre-paid taxi waiting for them outside the terminal and the AF representatives going for a little lie like: "well, you know, we did not have to do this but because you are some of our best customers, rather than letting you deal with customers service, I really wanted to arrange everything for you to arrive into Macao as quickly and easily as possible, so I apologise once again for the terrible delay you had to suffer but hope that you will forgive us and fly with us soon again".

That would definitely be taking some liberty with the truth but to go with your image yesterday, I'd think of it as standard marketing lies and would have gracefully smiled and said something like "oh, right? thanks so much for arranging everything ready for me anyway!". What I meant was, I guess, that I am willing to take some level of cr*p in the narrative is pragmatically, the airline gets me all I want without my needing to ask.