orbitmic

Hi everyone,
Did an unsuccessful search but apologies if I missed something. I have a question on the service on the summer seasonal European flights operated by AF from French regional airports (NCE-LHR, NCE-HER, TLS-ATH, etc).

I assumed that they would offer normal European service and consequently booked AF on some of my LHR-NCE flights and am considering booking them to Greece, but looking at the website, [ Economy | Air France ] I saw that they separate between "flights within Europe/North Africa", and "flights within France and from French regions" (which notably mentions the infamous "sale/sucre" as meals!) and that worried me a little.

As mentioned earlier, I was surprised that the flights are Y only, and I see that they use ORY-based planes. I can live with that, but quite frankly, if all AF has to offer me on a 3 hour flight from NCE to Greece, then I'd rather book with someone else who'd at least give me a sandwich (thankfully, we have some competition from here!) Does anyone know if that is indeed the case or if those flights receive the "normal" Y European service? - I'm flying them in a few days on the LHR route but as I'd like to book the rest soon I thought I'd ask here. Any other info on anything specific about those flights would be useful.

For info, I did fly the AF summer flights from NCE a bit before covid, and at that time, it was definitely normal service (and a decent cold meal to/from TLV for instance), which is why I didn't worry about service until I saw this! Thanks!!

PS: and I fully understand if anyone thinks a sandwich and decent drinks shouldn't make a big difference to me as I can bring my won, but simply, it does to me and it is part of why I often pay a little more to fly on "normal" airlines rather than U2 which is perfectly find if I want to bring my own food and drinks anyway!

Fabo.sk

The big problem with sucre/sale is not that you don't get a sandwich, but that you don't get an option to buy one, IMO. Do either one or the other, but don't give me a tiny packet of chocolate and pretend that's fine.

Concerto

Well, given how really bad their business class service has become, even on really long flights like to Tblisi, I wouldn't count on it in economy. Business gets the same meagre cold meal that you would get on the Paris Amsterdam flight.

brunos

I have no recent experience.
But the fact that they labelled "within france and from French regions" and that it is Y only would suggest that you get sucre/sale on the 1h30 flight NCE-LHR.

orbitmic

The flight is actually 1.55 (block time). Very possible but it would be paradoxical in that the much shorter cdg-lhr gets the sandwich!!

brunos

It is 1:50 block time indeed, but 1:30 actual flight time per FR24.
I have taken the BA flights a few times years ago in J and service was excellent. Same from CDG (all pre-covid).
I would not be excited to take that AF LHR-NCE bird. No food to be had or purchased at that time of the day is silly.

orbitmic

Indeed, "in the air" flight time on LHR_NCE is typically 1.30-1.35 (sometimes 1.40) depending on how lucky you are with the wind on the day. Funnily enough, block time on BA tends to be 2.05 which makes me wonder if BA pads schedules more or if runway taxiing is shorter from T3 (I'll admit I never checked till now despite flying from LHR dozens of times and LHR-NCE nearly every week but always from T5 from now).

Sadly for this specific route, BA C has returned to pre-covid catering so we lost the hot meal in favour of the tiny salad (a couple of nice ones like the poke bowl but many very mediocre ones, and worse, the nasty afternoon tea for afternoon flights and "brunch" in the mid mornings). In Y, it is crisps and a bottle of water so not great.

The phrasing is indeed the reason why I started this thread and what worried me, but also the fact that I don't know if lazy AF will bother creating catering contracts for European type sandwiches for those planes that only fly those routes for two months. The planes are clearly ORY-based aircrafts thouvh the glimmer of hope is that they seem to mostly fly the European routes in the day and often start at NCE or TLS or MRS it seems. all of which can provide perfectly reasonable and competitively prices sandwiches should AF decide to, but indeed, my prognostic errs on the negative side.

As you say, it would be silly as the flight times are 17.35-20.30 but by nature, NCE serves a fairly broad area so it would not be unusual for people to have another hour transport before reaching destination, for instance when people are headed to the St Tropez area or the Liguria coast and I'd expect that they will be bloody hungry by the time they arrive!!

The Aspire lounge described in the lounge thread looks ok but not great, but thankfully, I can access the Amex Centurion lounge in T3 which should have better offerings so might try and arrive a bit earlier to have my own conception of afternoon tea (ie a normal meal with no tea anywhere in sight!) before flying but that of course is based on hope security is not too horrid (I presume that AF has no fast track for Platinum as they were unwilling to pay for it at T4 already unless flying C).

Anyway, if no final confirmation comes before I fly, I will report back on this thread next week!

Goldorak

Hi Orbitmic
AF had fast track at LHR T4 for Elites+ flying Y. I used it many times. And AF has also fast track currently in T3 (used it recently).

stimpy

But there is Champagne, right?

LYS-CDG has Champagne. Even if it's sucre/sale.

Goldorak

I hope! otherwise Orbitmic is transforming into a gremlins if no champagne before midnight

orbitmic

You bet! But admit you secretly want to see what I'd become if they make me really angry!! (or hungry for that matter!)

Oh great about fast track. For some reason I remember a time I was denied when flying in Y (though never had issue in C) but that was a long time ago! And Fast track will make a difference (one of the advantages of T3 is that it has fast track currently functioning whilst T4 has not reopened it yet!)

orbitmic

but that’s presumably in C? Those “European flights from the regions” are y only so I guess no Champagne and as Goldorak rightly says, I’ll transform into a gremlin minus the cool singing!

i never do ory flights (;I always use cdg if I need to fly to Paris) so I don’t even know if ory flights have the normal bar or some reduced version (note: I miss the time Af used to have port and pastis in all bars in Y even though the pastis bottles were ridiculously small! Perfect for a summer aperitif!)

stimpy

True I'm always in C on LYS-CDG. However they keep the bottle on the trolley as they move back into Y so I figured that they could serve it to Y pax. But I never turn my head to look back when I'm in row 1.

It's Jacquart in case anyone cares.

carnarvon

Hmmm

They remove the bottle.

orbitmic

I checked in for my flight, but can't get a mobile BP from LHR. Is this normal? I've never had issues getting those before, but this time the option is simply not shown, just to generate the pdf BP, send it to my email, or cancel check in. Are there self-check in machines at LHR T3 (as I'd rather not queue at check in if I can avoid it but don't have an easy access to a printer). Thanks!