Downgraded from PE to Economy: Options?
 

Moments ago, I received the following email:

Booking reference : *****

Dear Sir,
Due to a change of aircraft on flight AF011 on August 05th from New-York to Paris Charles de Gaulle, you have been rebooked in Economy class on the same flight.

If your ticket is already issued, you will receive a voucher by e-mail.

We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused. Our staff is ready to provide you with any assistance you may need.
Please accept our apologies.

I was originally booked in Premium Economy. My wife and daughter are also on the same flight but on a different PNR. What is the compensation for a downgraded cabin? We are on a discounted A fare class.

Does a downgrade in cabin allow a free change to an earlier flight?

I thought all of Air France's long haul wide body fleet had PE, but looks like the 747-400 is not. I guess that's the alternate equipment they will fly tonight. Any way to confirm that?

The CSR lady on the phone still sees me in PE and then tells me it looks like I was downgraded from Business to PE.

My online reservation also still shows me in PE.

The equipment is a 772 changed from a 77W, according to the Air France lady.

Hung up called again: A second customer service rep said the same thing. Still in PE. Was downgraded from Business. That makes no sense, unless I had an OpUp.

Any way to figure out what equipment they are flying tonight?
AF011 JFK-CDG 9:50pm

Today is August 5th.

Have you tried to do OLCI to see what your boarding pass says?

Yes, I had OLCI'd yesterday. Have my boarding pass for PE. The reservation on AF.us still shows me in my original PE seat.

Checked FlightAware to see what equipment is flying in from CDG to JFK. It's a 772. Checked SeatGuru which shows all 772s equipped with PE.

Yes all of them are equipped with PE, however the amount of seats in PE could be different.
If you go to AF website, can you still see the seatmap and your assigned seat?

Could always be a glitch in their IT system showing you have a business class seat and therefor generating this e-mail you got.

Yeah, your first scenario is what I fear has happened here. I cannot see the seat map anymore.

There is definitely an equipment swap from a 77W to a 772, meaning from 60 seats in J to a max of 49 (depending on configuration), and from 28 in PE to 24. I imagine there's a few disgruntled J pax tonight who have been told they are flying PE, and apart from a few lucky PE customers, the rest have been moved down to Economy.

I imagine my 25H that was previously in PE is now in Y.

It's still speculation, since the phone agents did not know what I was talking about, but I guess I should prep the fam for economy class to Paris.

I wonder what's in order regarding compensation.

Confirmed 29C in Y :(

So about compensation, this is what I found on the Air France website. The relevant portion is copied below, and underscored:

[B]4. DOWNGRADING

[B]If you are involuntarily placed in a lower class than that which is indicated on your ticket, you may request a reimbursement of the following:

75% of the ticket price for all non-EU flights of more than 3,500 km
In addition, AIR FRANCE/KLM will offer you a non-refundable credit voucher (goodwill compensation), according to your travel class.

How do they calculate the 75% of the flight? This is one leg of a four leg roundtrip.

I am hoping that since this information is on AirFrance.US, this is relevant to flights ex-USA as well.

The 75% comes from EC261. There's been discussion about whether it's 75% of the entire ticket (unreasonable), 75% based on the fare component or fare in that direction, or 75% of the cost allocated to the segment that was downgraded.

If they generally give a runaround like this thread suggests, then I would think 75% of the entire ticket is not quite that unreasonable.

Hopefully, it wont be as bad as that.

There is indeed an equipment swap today for the AF010/011 rotation from a B77W configured 4P - 38J - 28W - 252Y to a "Quick change" config B772, i.e. 16J - 24W - 276Y. So obviously a lot of downgraded people tonight from P to J, from J to W and from W to Y (your case).
You are certainly entitled to change your flight, to stay in W, but keep in mind that the flights are very full now and so it might be difficult to find 3 seats today in W.

To add to the discussion : the different discussions you had on the phone with the DL agents representing AF in the US show how incompetent those DL agents are on AF affairs. We have multiple almost daily examples of that on this forum but your case is really a good one. How can you tell a customer booked in W, having received an e-mail announcing a downgrade to Y, that you are still in W, and then you are in J, and then I don't know, etc etc. Come on, the PNR is obviously annotated in such a case and it's certainly not hard to understand what's happening when you have all the profesisional tools, while we, on this forum, found immediately what was happening and with only information publicly available. :rolleyes:

No, we have decided to fly what they have for us. I checked and all flights are booked solid today in W.

Goldorak, I cant find the configuration you mention on the B772 when checking SeatGuru. Can you direct me to a seat map of the configuration you mention, please? My wife and daughter have 23G and H, and in one of the three 772 configs on SeatGuru, row 23 is PE. In another, it is the first row in Y. The third is the least desirable. Now if there is another 4th configuration on the B772, I'd like to check that too, if possible.

Thanks!

These days, the expectation of competency is minimal. I am happy if they're polite and seem to be making an effort to understand. That they don't eventually, like the lady who didnt know how to add my Skymiles number to the AF reservation, and direct you to other resources, is unfortunate.

Seatguru is completely outdated for AF configs, so do not consider this as a reliable source. And I will have trouble to give you any link for your specific config of tonight. Indeed, it is a temporary config AF has during the summer, called "Quick Change". The principle is that, during the summer holidays period, there are less J bookings and more Y bookings. So they remove several rows of J and install Y seats instead. This gives a strange config with J, then Y, then W and finally the main Y cabin. But if you want to check the W and main Y cabin maps, you can in fact look at the "regular non-quick change" of the same plane, because the W and main Y cabins don't change. So, look at this thread :
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-f...-schedule.html
Open the wiki at the top of the thread, scroll down until the cabin maps and your config (for W and the main Y cabin) will be the 2nd one displayed (called "Boeing 777-200ER 280 seats or 316 seats "quick change" J-W-Y with new cabins"). Row 23 is the first row of Y (bulkhead).

Thank you very much. That is extremely helpful!