Marambio

I have the same question. How do strikes affect intercontinental services to Paris? That is, I have occasionally heard that during strikes, EZE-CDG flights operate as normal, while CDG-EZE flights are cancelled.

I tweeted Air France in French earlier today asking about this, and so far pas de réponse.

AlicorporateUK

Goldorak

That kind of domestic flights are indeed more at risk. Do not make your own arrangements, but deal with AF (or with the TA you booked your ticket with)

No, DL flights do not have AF crews !

Still possible but seems very unlikely.

Crew do not strike at outstations. But cancellations are still possible on EZE-CDG. Indeed this flight is normally operated daily. Day 1 CDG/crew 1 : flight arrives Day 2 in EZE. If the flight on D-1 or D-2 on CDG-EZE was cancelled, then the EZE-CDG flight on Day2 will be cancelled because there is no fresh crew in EZE to fly back to Paris.

brunos

Indeed crew seldom strike at outstations for a couple of reasons. They want to be back home rather than in a weird place. They would have to pay their hotel.
Even if a few cew would like to strike, the social pressure of the rest of the crew who want to get back to their family is strong.
However, it has (rarely) happened with pilots, especially in attractive places.

As Goldorak mentions, the domino effect affects both the ac and the crew. But not sure I understand the example. Let's say the strike to EZE is on day 0 (D0). Then the ac/crew does not arrive on D1. Then no flight from EZE-CDG on D1. And the crew that was already in EZE and was supposed to work that flight has one additional day in EZE. Let's assume for simplicity that crews work on a one-day rest in EZE. This crew (supposed to fly on D1), will staff EZE-CDG on D2. The crew that landed in EZE on D2 wil staff the EZE-CDG1 on D3 and so on.

Marambio

So, if I understand correctly, EZE-CDG on strike day (SD) is most likely flown as normal, since the aircraft left Paris before the strike (SD -1) and crews seldom strike at outstations. The issue would be for pax flying EZE-CDG on SD+1, as their plane wouldn't have left CDG on SD. Therefore, since I'm flying EZE-CDG on SD and CDG-FCO on SD +1, I should land in Rome without any issues.

That is pretty good news. I don't really mind spending an extra night in Rome on the way back, but missing one day of holiday because of the strike would have bothered me.

Thank you Goldorak and brunos for your insight.

Goldorak

Yes, this is it.

NumbThumb

I assume it's safe to say that they prioritize their most popular/busy routes when they choose which flights to cancel....? I'm just trying to figure out if I should give them a call and try to get ahead of everyone else and get the best routing for that day to YVR. There's KL677 to YYC (and then WestJet from there) which is on a 787, so that'd be at least something. I was really looking forward to trying out AF's J though.

Or I roll the dice and hope they don't cancel the YVR route...

Zebulon56

For the record, CDG-EZE-CDG was cancelled during the strike in February... I was scheduled to fly from EZE on February 26 and had to travel back via GRU as this flight operated normally...

Goldorak

It's certainly not as easy. Plenty of other factors come into consideration like availability of crews at outstations, easiness of rebooking solutions on other airlines, if another Skyteam airline can replace AF on the route (for instance it happened in the past long pilot strikes that DL replaced AF on some US flights), etc

brunos

I did not know that there was an AF strike on February 26. Do you mean Feb 23?

brunos

Many factors indeed.
It must be a nightmare to try to reassign crews,. For example moving crews scheduled from a short longhaul like JKF or BOS to a long one like HKG or NRT. But it is easier and cheaper (given the DL JV) to rebook pax on TATL. ITo most US destinations, ac do their rotation in less than 24h. If it misses one rotation due to strike, it remains available the next day. If an ac does not fly to HKG, it was supposed to be away for some 32 hours, so there is an extra supply of ac the day after a strike and they remain unused. On long flights, crew often have a 2+ day rest at outstation. Hence, cancelling a flight to HKG (my biased example) means that the aircraft will not be depart from HKG the next day for obvious reasons (ac missing), but it will also create crew scheduling troubles for at least two or three days.

NumbThumb

My worry is if the flight is canceled and they re-route on DL through JFK or MSP. Ideally I'd like to get as far West as possible in a good seat as opposed to half the trip being in a proper business class seat while the other half is a domestic product.

Do you guys think it's best to try to get out ahead of this and try to get on the flight to Calgary on KLM (easier for me anyways as I'm based out of AMS) and then it's a short hop to Vancouver or take take my chances and see if that flight is affected or not?

Out of curiosity, if I were to choose to actively re-route myself before AF did anything and we arrive more than 4 hours ater than our original scheduled arrival time, am I still eligible for compensation under EC261 rules?

Goldorak

Although I of course understand you, in that kind of circumstance, your priorities should be:
1- to arrive at your destination at the scheduled time or not too much later
2- in your booked class of service
The disruptions can be so important if the strike is a hard one, that if the only price you have to "pay" is to have to fly part of the trip in DL domestic F, then you can be happy. Believe me, some people will suffer more than you...

Nobody knows that here. You have nothing to lose to call AF now or later.

Why would you ?

NumbThumb

Agreed but as this is a leisure trip and the first day in Vancouver is a bit of an in-between day, we could easily arrive the day after and still get to where we need to be when we need to be there. For us, flying J is not so common and still something we look forward to. It's part of the experience and journey and we love it. Having half of one's outbound journey lessened in quality/experience isn't ideal. That said, not getting to one's ultimate destination anytime soon is less ideal...

Why would I opt to arrive later or why would I be entitled to compensation? If it's the former...because every other option I've found thus far puts me into YVR at least 5 hours later than our existing itinerary. If it's the later, because I've never encountered this situation before.

As for calling AF/KLM regarding Calgary, it was more for advice from you guys who are far more frequent travelers than I. Going back to the whole experience aspect, we were really looking forward to experiencing AF's J as we've done KLM's (and DL for that matter) and will do so again on the inbound as it's a direct to AMS. I guess I'm just looking for some advice even though I know no one can give a definitive answer wether or not our flight would be on the chopping block. Plus there's only 2 J seats showing up for AMS-YYC on the 23rd so I guess I should call and play it safe.

Mcflyneo

It seems i can change my ticket and swap 2 segments in eco for a direct c class flight, for free. To bad it screws up my MR segment count, otherwise...