Turnaround time: AF and EZE
 

For family and business reasons, I have done quite a few ORY-NCE lately.
As Mokshu otfen states, punctuality is a distinct advantage of EZE. My last experience of boarding with AF is typical. IN ORY, there was no Skypriority and just a big melee before the counter. By the time I fought my way there was no newspaper left. Boarding was very slow and we departed ten minutes late because of it. Today from NCE, the aircraft arrived 15 minutes late (captain said because of missing pax at boarding). Watching through the window, I could see the last pax disembark from the arriving aircraft, but it took over fifteen minutes before boarding started, probably due to plane cleaning by local airport staff. Skypriority was enforced then everyone else boarded. I boarded early and could grab a French newspaper, but I then witnessed how slow boarding was on a A321. I sat next to the standing FA in row 10. She kept trying to answer requests of pax to sit together. Very charming but slowing the boarding process significantly so that it took 25 minutes. Hence we doubled the initial delay of the incoming aircraft to 30 minutes.
It is one thing to shorten the official turnaround time, it is another thing to have the staff trying seriously to enforce it.

EZE is much more efficient. Staff work hard to speed the process and boarding by front and back door of the airplane makes a big difference. And FA help clean the plane of newspaper and the like.
PS: Orbitmic, I did find the escalator when arriving from gate A14 and above.

Glad you found the escalator! I agree with you that boarding on AF seems to be slower than (not just U2 but) many other airlines. This is all the more striking that AF never seems to implement new tactics to supposedly improve efficiency (no more BP checks onboard, seat row numbers etc). In effect, it seems to make little to no difference

And indeed, NCE is one of the best stations for Skypriority boarding enforcement. They do tend to mean it which is not the case everywhere (and indeed, ORY is one of the culprits here which is very odd as AF is alone in its parts of the terminal and could thus implement whatever infrastructure it wants for SP to be efficient.

Also, U2 now uses both front and rear doors for deboarding (and sometimes for boarding) at many airports (say NCE, CDG 2D and ORY), which helps a lot when it comes to accelerate turnarounds. On its side AF never does that at its main stations (and/or has never tried to challenge the airport authorities and/or has never though about that because "that's not possible").

I just love this forum and all of the surprises it harbours.

There I go, curious to learn something about ground operations of Air France at Buenos Aires (=EZE!)... and then our friend brunos takes me to a trip on the Côte d'Azur ;)

Now, on that trip to the land of inefficiency which is ruled by the Masters of AF: I wonder to what extent AF counters its own initiatives with others. For instance, they want to save cost and time by doing automatic CKI. Result: they dispatch people in such a bizarre way that they then come to the airport to ask for a change in seat, which takes people to man the desks. Often flights are full by the time that people get to the airport, so they are unhappy. So they ask on board, where still they cannot easily get what they like, but they slow boarding. End result: unhappy customers, higher costs for people that cannot make customers happy, and slower boarding.

Another thing is luggage in the overhead bins. Often time is wasted before departure to find space for people's belongings. particularly annoying is when people seated in row 28 place their luggage in the bin overhead row 3, typically a Business Class row. Because FAs do not want to upset the C class customer they try to find some stowage somewhere else, which takes time. If the FAs standing around the cabin anyway and doing not a lot (no more BP checks), why don't they keep an eye at least on the overhead bins in the Affaires and PE cabins? Keep those free for people seated in the front row and at the same time be strict about simply putting in the hold those Y class bags that do not fit in the overhead racks instead of looking for space - saves time, and upsets "only" the lower margin customers.

And so on...

Easyjet observation on my limited experience (3 flights this year - but I got myself an easyjet Plus card!): they are extremely disciplined. For instance priority boarding by bus. In Geneva many EZY departures to French airports are boarded by bus. So I wondered what the point was about priority boarding. Well here was the trick: they had a divider in the middle of the bus. They first boarded the priority boarding pax in the back, then closed that door, then boarded the "general public" through the other doors in the front part of the bus. At the plane, first opened the back doors to let out prio pax, then the others. Smart.

Excellent points. To me this highlights the MiNi idiocy: you tell people that they cannot change their seat online, they have to take what they are given there, BUT they can change it at the airport by taking expensive agent time! How dumb do you need to be to generate a "low cost" class which effectively pushes to increase your cost structure?! Either do it all the way (cheap is cheap, pay for pre-assignment or take your random seat like U2, DY, and IB) or offer relative flexibility that is limited to the cheapest instruments (e.g. you can only change your seat at OLCI and use the self-drop machines, not the manned counters which could be reserved for classic and silver pax for instance while business counters would be only for business, first, and gold/platinum pax).

Very. And further confirms the whole idea that there is a lot of thought going into U2 procedures and operations, far more so than on AF IMHO.

To use an expression I heard in England: "They couldn't even organize a piss-up in a brewery" ;)

:)

Another AF ORY-NCE yesterday. This time with family so I had to check bags. The waiting line was very long, well beyond Paul in Hall 2; took some 20 minutes. Typical example of poor AF organization. A single person (two after many complaints) was checking that everything was in order just before the new automatic luggage "boxes". Because there were many infrequent travelers, quite a few had not retrieved their tags and stuck it properly on their bags. That delayed everyone and two or three "boxes" were unused at all time. Hence the facilities were used at only 70% of their capacity. It would have been more efficient to perform the check deeper in the line but the AF agents remained stubbornly at the entrance of the bag deposit. and worked very slowly; very charming as usual but totally inefficient.
To be fair, the line got shorter half an hour later, but AF should be able to deal with peak hours in an efficient way. Did not need more man power (as the agents claimed), just better organization.
BTW Orbitmic, I again landed at a gate where I could use the escalator but it was out of order. From comments by other pax, it seems quite frequently the case.

Sorry if it sounds obvious, but just to double-check that you mean someone went on it and it still did not work? I'm asking because it is one of those energy saving escalators that only starts moving when someone actually steps on it. I have personaly never experienced it being out of order (in hundreds of use), so if it was out of order it certainly isn't a frequent occurrence at all, but as I am typically among the fastest out I have very often seen people who, because it was not moving, assumed that it was not working and thus went down the stairs, while my stepping on it started it automatically.

Hey, don't call me stupid :)
I did walk down the escalator and it did not move :(
Actually the escalator is shor but also narrow, so not easy to walk down with a big carryon. But moving from cold and rainy Paris to sunny Nice made up for any miseries encountered on the way.

Yep the sun thing does the trick every time! ;) Sorry you got an out of order escalator! And yes it is quite narrow indeed!

Another one in the "if they organized it better it would be better for AF and for passengers: boarding of a longhaul flight by bus at CDG on Friday in pouring rain (the one that brunos escaped from). The infamous "Parking Hotel" that has become much rarer since S4 opened, but they still board planes there from time to time it seems, by bus.

The bus drives up to the plane, but then stops about 50 meters from the stairs. Result: passengers have to walk/run through the pouring rain, but since they don't know how many people are already queuing on the stairs they wait in the bus so that they won't have to wait in the rain in case they can't get on the (covered) stairway. But that problem is solved because AF has dispatched two ground staff, one to stand at the bottom of the stairway and see if more people can fit on, and one standing in front of the bus door to let people through in little groups of 6-8 passengers. It would be faster, more convenient for pax and wouldn't require two ground staff if the bus only drove up to the bottom of the stairway.

Now probably someone will come and tell us that it's "impossible because of CDG", but all those impossibles can only be as impossible as it was impossible to not do BP checks at the door, priority access to security lanes, oneway fares, self-printing of luggage tags, etc. In other words: it can be made possible, and other airports show the example.