I'm on that flight in early March. I will report back then, but surely/hopefully someone else can give an update before then.

I'll be on it in late January and will be happy to report.

Yes-I have flown this flight twice in the past six weeks.

Thanks for this info, especially as it is good news!

Just flew EWR CDG yesterday in J. I was able to use the SAS lounge.

Checking in online today I was told that the lounge is closed and I will get a voucher at the counter - could be a gremlin in the system of course from previous setup.

I asked at the counter when dropping off bags: this is a ghost in the system and the SAS lounge was indeed available and very convenient for the gate. All remarkably painless compared with my last experience of JFK.

And how is this lounge ?

If it were a contract lounge, I'd say middling - similar to Plaza at LHR. Food and drink, and a useful small telephone room I could use for a conference call. The red wine was Jacob's Creek, which I did not sample for obvious reasons. I had hoped a bottle of champagne would appear for AF passengers at an alloted time, which I've seen elsewhere, but if it did, I missed it. Soup, salad, some hot food were fine, so I was able to go straight to sleep onboard. But for an airline's own lounge? It didn't sell SK long haul to me. The contrast from 2E-K this morning is sharp.

Once the new AF lounge opens at EWR it might make for an attractive option, especially if a flight left much later than AF63, but those are answers to questions you didn't ask...

Over the past four months, I've had eleven trips to France. Five of those trips have been out of EWR, with the last being just after Christmas (seems as if the gate change occurred in early January).

For my last two trips, I've decided that the trip to JFK is worth it for the broader flight selection. I typically fly out on Sunday nights and return on Friday mornings. With JFK, I can take AF7 which connects connects to the noontime connecting bank at CDG. I end up getting to MPL/SXB (my two typical destinations-SXB via train) at about 1:30-2PM. I go to my hotel, take a nap, and work for the rest of the afternoon. If I take AF63, it lands at 6AM after 6.5 sleepless hours (I can't fall asleep atter a 5PM departure). The first connecting flight to MPL is at 9:15-ish, landing around 10:30. It's too late to head to the office at that point (my office is 40 minutes outside of MPL) and I'm sleepless, so there's no benefits and all negatives to the earlier departure.

Similarly, on the way back, I can take the first flight out of MPL and connect to AF2 and be back at JFK by 11AM (tight connection but I haven't missed it yet-fingers crossed). Way better than a long layover at CDG and not getting back to EWR until 3PM.

I only have one Air France flight out of EWR scheduled in the coming months, connecting to WAW, not MPL/SXB. I actually wanted to try SAS for that trip, but connections via CPH were 2x the cost of AF.

I don't disagree, BOSishome, even if I did manage to sleep after some very busy days. I was lured by an extremely cheap fare without really working out just how bad the times were. Fundamentally, I am not sure who that really serves. Nobody wants to get into Paris that early, there is quite a wait until most connections, and it kills the afternoon on the day of departure. My next trip to New York is JFK in the summer: AF12 and home on AF11 which I hope will be more civilized.

It serves the NJ business community, I think. For example, my company has over 2,000 employees in NJ and 4,000+ throughout France. We probably booked 300+ tickets on the flight in 2024. I'm sure there are other companies like us...

Oh I get why EWR, NJ etc, just not the timings. That's a lot of badly timed flights for you and your colleagues!

In the SK forum there’s a link to an NJ Transit doc, and appears AF has taken over the lease on the SK lounge.

Now with link: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/36856948-post158.html

Interest!ing. So the announced AF lounge is in fact the takeover of the SK one .
I wouldn't be surprised to see SK leaving EWR and consolidates NY ops in JFK where they have now connectivity with DL.