I am in the process of putting together a ST RTW trip in First class. Obviously, I would like to minimize the number of C segments, but I'm having trouble identifying flights with F cabins. The only remaining partners with F cabins are KE and AF; is there an efficient way of figuring out which routes are served by planes with F cabins?

I remember there was a thread in the AF forum recently where someone provided a list of AF those destinations that are served in First. Maybe you can find a similar thread in the KE forum. (If not, you could always try to book a First flight on some website for a destination you are interested in.)

As far as I remember, the AF flights with a First cabin were into some US cities (such as LAX and NYC), maybe also one Canadian airport, some South American aiports (think EZE, for example), some busy Asian destinations such as TYO and HKG, African destinations such as JNB and maybe some dictator-run oil producing country, and (I hope I remember it correctly) DBX and maybe even Cairo. (But please look it up in the thread for yourself. I just wanted to give you an idea of what to expect.)

Generally speaking, the number of ST First Class destinations is not very large and mostly includes transcontinental long-haul flight. So you will probably not be able to have more than 3 to 4 First class fights on your trip. (e.g. Europe - The Americas, US - Asia, Asia - Europe, and maybe Europe - South Africa). And this is perhaps an explanation of why the fare difference between Business and First RTW tickets is not very large.

Most of KE's long haul flights have F. It varies quite a bit in quality from one aircraft to the next but it does exist. I believe they have an F cabin on all widebody planes, but they don't sell F on every route, so you'd have to investigate this with a tool such as Expertflyer.

IMHO, it's not worth the trouble. Getting your routing dictated as well as having to backtrack all the time and, moreover, change planes at CDG more than once (even though it's improved, it's still worse than e.g. MAD or PRG). Just save your money and go C. If you *must* fly in F, I'd go with *A.

Possible routes include LAX-GRU, ICN-LAX, MUC/FRA-ICN in new KE F, and/or GRU/RIO-CDG and CDG-SIN/etc in AF F. So it's possible to fly a ST RTW without ever resorting to C. Additional legs could be booked in the old-style KE F (SIN-ICN, ICN-SYD/AKL), even though that's not as attractive. Africa may be the toughest, as AF doesn't have any flights with F to any of my destinations, and of course it's disappointing that there is no way to get to PPT in F anymore.