SCSA

First, apologies if this is a regular question. I did search the AF FAQ thread but couldn't find anything recent.

I fly a lot of European, long-haul and US routes. I'm increasingly unhappy with BA and want to try another alliance for a while. Delta is a good choice because of their US network, and they offered me a status match to Platinum Medallion (Skyteam Elite Plus).

Seat selection is very important to me being 6'4", and I was surprised to learn after making a recent AF booking that no one in economy is entitled to advance seat selection on a medium-haul flight. In my case I was told I have to either call 30 hours before or take my chances at the airport.

My questions are: come 30 hours out are elites given priority? What are my chances of getting stuck in a middle seat? And has AF ever considered how stupid this is? I was told on the phone that they don't assign in advance because of equipment changes.

I've enough travel upcoming planned between AF and DL to meet the status challenge, but it's little things like this that may influence whether I stick with Skyteam.

orbitmic

What you are told is correct in that AF does not allow any advanced seat selection in Y within Europe. As a result, if you check in online a t-30, seat choice is usually good. Second, unlike many airlines, AF "slices" its cabin into sectors available to various types of customers so some parts are only available to elite passengers and no one else (typically front of the cabin).

If you check in early, your chances of getting a middle seat are very close to none. That said, if you care about advanced seat selection, note that KL offers this on all flights

SCSA

Cheers. Thanks for that.

fifty_two

About AF planes , and like any other airlines , the choice is quite limited if you are 6'4" (iam 6'6" so i know what you are talking about). Neither pay for emergency seats or upgrade from economy.

I remember 4 years ago ive never heard about fees for emergency seats , and it was good on longhaul flights for tall people , now more funny is that they are selling ''extra comfort seats'' , but it turn out that its just normal seats with extra legroom in front of lavatories because of the configuration of the plane

The choice of seats is free for elite and elite + (at least now) , but for other passengers they should be able to choose their seats before 30hours by paying a fee. Ive read that it will be free for skymiles elite members but iam not 100% sure

I dont know if DL do the same but on AF when you are a flying blue member you can specify which kind of seat you like in your profile , then system will auto-assign you a windows seat for example if available , then you are free to change for whatever you want , so if you buy your seats from DL website on AF flights i dont know if your preferences will be applied.

San Gottardo

In fact you don't have to call. You can do it online on your PC, or through Air France's mobile app (which by the way is excellent). Through these channels you sometimes also get offers to upgrade to Business class, with fees for the upgrade ranging from attractive to ridiculous.

No: check-in opens for everybody at the same time. Yes: elites have access to the front of the cabin which is blocked off for non-elites, and top tier elites get exit row seats for free (which already eliminates all those that don't want to pay.

Also, typically AF pre-assigns seats, so when you go to online check-in you'll usually find that a seat has already been assigned to you. As an elite, this will be a seat towards the front of the cabin, and usually the middle seat left free (it may very well fill up later). You can change seats through online check-in as often as you like right up until check-in cutoff time.

Not very high.

They have a very long list of stupidities to work on. They haven't gotten to this one yet. And to be fair, there are worse things than this.

BS. AF operate a fleet of A321, A320, A319, and A318 on medium haul flights. There can indeed be last minute swaps for instance because of technical problems with the originally scheduled plane. But other than that rotations are planned a long time before. Otherwise they couldn't manage bookings. Plus they actually do allow for advance seat reservations in Business - so why isn't supposed equipment change an issue there? Also, there are plenty of other airlines operating the same fleet mix of A321/A320/A319: British Airways, Lufthansa, Alitalia, Swiss, Austrian, SAS, Finnair, TAP, Iberia... They have the same challenge of equipment change. With five of them advance seat reservations in economy are possible, and for the others I don't know. I don't know of any other than Air France where it's impossible.

I can of course not influence your decision criteria of what will make you stick with Skyteam, but from own experience I wouldn't worry too much about seat assignments on Air France medium haul flights. As a status card holder you have access to the better seats and are very very unlikely to find yourself in a middle seat (except if you book last minute when most people have already checked in). What may happen is that someone will occupy the middle seat next to you, but that is the normal thing in Economy class. If you want to avoid that the only way is to use Lufthansa/Austrian/Swiss who automatically block seats next to status card holders when the plane isn't full, and make those seats available only when there is nothing else left on the plane. So quite often you have the business class seating (i.e. free neighbouring seat) in economy.

Depending on your routes I would also care about the efficiency of the hub in case you have many transfer routings; CDG is fine now after having been hellish up until about two years ago, with the exception of flights on commuter planes that leave from a satellite terminal which is not as easy to transfer from/to and is very sparse in terms of amenities. Another thing that could matter for you is time-saving infrastructure for elites (there is SkyPriority for security and boarding at all European Skyteam hubs which usually works well, and it's quite common at outstations as well), and quality of lounges (not great for Air France, but it's not as if BA First or Lufthansa Senator lounges were anything to look forward to). Air France has also improved on IRROPS handling.

Some time ago I would have advised against making Air France the preferred choice in Europe. But over time Air France has become better around a number of things and other airlines have become less attractive, so today AF is an acceptable legacy carrier which functions more or less well.

bennos

I suspect it's more so that they can dynamically size the "J" cabin until T-30, since if they need more J space all they have to do is move the curtain back a row or two. I suppose this is sort of an equipment change...

orbitmic

But BA and KL do the same and nonetheless have no problem allowing pre-assignment.

NickB

With BA, though, they handle it by making very conservative assumptions until 3 days before the flight. Up to that point, numerous rows which in all likelihood will end up in economy are unavailable for assignments. So, if you want a seat towards the front of the Y cabin, you need to come back at D-3 to re-assign. KL is different and makes the whole cabin in principle pre-assignable.

orbitmic

Absolutely, but either way, it shows that it is not incompatible with the airline maintaining freedom on where the curtain will ultimately fall. I would also add that both BA and KL feel entirely free to move you if your selected Y seat becomes C at the last minute and I think that most passengers accept that possibility as a one off without issue at one point on BA, I was moved virtually all the time which was annoying but they seem to have improved now!)

San Gottardo

See above. Air France is the only European airline I am aware of that operates an Airbus A32S fleet and pretends that having several versions (321,320, 319,, etc) makes seat assignment for Y impossible. BA can, LH can, LX can, OS can, AZ can. And so can other airlines that operate a fleet with a mix of various 737 models (-700, -800, -900 for KLM for instance). So it's BS.

NickB

Indeed. the 'danger zone' with BA tends to be the very first row of economy, which is most likely to be moved back. It used to be more of an issue when they had the 2+3 config, where the front AC seats were prized positions. Now, I often go for the second row of economy for greater piece of mind.

Not so sure it is the variability of equipment that is the main issue as the movability of the curtain. Either way, as pointed out by orbitmic, this is not in itself a convincing argument so I too would go along with your "it's BS" assessment.

San Gottardo

You are right of course. I just gave a shortened version of the argument, whereby instead of saying "variability of the fleet" I should have said "several airlines that also operate a mixed A32S fleet and have a variably sized business class, moving the curtain based on demand". Which is also why I didn't mention other carriers that also have a mix of A32S but do not fall into the category because they don't have a separate business class cabin (for instance AB) or not one whose size varies (like SU).

catsniper75