jalebi_bhai Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 He had a bad service. Big deal, it happens to anyone and everyone. This stuff is expected in the airline business, you just cop it on the chin and move on. If he has the tenacity to fight it out in the courts, whatever, let him go for it. It's more trouble than it's worth. Just forget it and move on, fly someone else next time. You know.....he wasn't hitchhiking on the highway with them......he had paid them a good sum of money to provide him with good service......plus his major complaint wasn't necessarily the delay.....it was the total lack of of courtesy displayed by the Air France and the CDG airport officials to him and his fellow stranded passengers..... Having been to Paris myself.......you definitely feel a sense of xenophobia.....though it would be unfair to broadly generalize......
jalebi_bhai Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 my mom had same experience with Emirates. The employees treat whites better than Indians When was this? I'm a frequent flyer with Emirates and my experiences with them have always been very good.....
EnterTheVoid Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 We all agree that they are a **** airline. Matter stops there as far as I am concerned, I wouldn't waste my time dealing with those stubborn dipshits. Writing angry letters to the CEO isn't going to bring about an immediate change in their culture.
Prakat Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 Either you take the fight to the company for shoddy service or you just swallow that **** and move on. Both have their merits. Fight or flight, it's in your instincts.
Malcolm Merlyn Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 Sue Air France.May be GOI should ban them for racism. Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2
The Outsider Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 People should tone down their expectations while flying economy class. Get out of the mindset that air travel is luxury travel, by default. Treat it like you would treat bus travel, where if you are not given vouchers for food you simply take out your wallet and buy something to eat, rather than complain.
Malcolm Merlyn Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 People should tone down their expectations while flying economy class. Get out of the mindset that air travel is luxury travel' date=' by default. Treat it like you would treat bus travel, where if you are not given vouchers for food you simply take out your wallet and buy something to eat, rather than complain.[/quote'] Haaaiii.you serious?There are rules and regulations here which were clearly flouted. Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2
Crookbond Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 People should tone down their expectations while flying economy class. Get out of the mindset that air travel is luxury travel' date=' by default. Treat it like you would treat bus travel, where if you are not given vouchers for food you simply take out your wallet and buy something to eat, rather than complain.[/quote'] The OP's issue wasn't really "luxury" but the difference in treatment meted out by Air France based on nationality. Knowing AF's history and the snob a***** some French are he has rightlyfully vented out his frustration.
Malcolm Merlyn Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 Air France should be banned.On one hand their govt. begs us for defence contracts and nuclear deals and AF has the guts to do this.Cancel those contracts as well. Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2
diga Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 Air France should be banned.On one hand their govt. begs us for defence contracts and nuclear deals and AF has the guts to do this.Cancel those contracts as well. Sonia & her family have substantial stake in Dassualt shares according an email circulating in the right wing blogosphere
Malcolm Merlyn Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 Sonia & her family have substantial stake in Dassualt shares according an email circulating in the right wing blogosphere TBH Rafale was the best aircraft in the MMRCA contest.Most defense analysts said the same. I think the shareholders of Dassualt can be easily found on the net as Dassault is a public company. Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2
diga Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 TBH Rafale was the best aircraft in the MMRCA contest.Most defense analysts said the same. I think the shareholders of Dassualt can be easily found on the net as Dassault is a public company. I agree Rafale was probably the best.. but since you said "begs us for defence contracts ", I wrote that. Regarding shareholding pattern, I doubt it if its through a trust far removed from actual owners. @OP: Sorry for digressing
Malcolm Merlyn Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 I agree Rafale was probably the best.. but since you said "begs us for defence contracts ", I wrote that. Regarding shareholding pattern, I doubt it if its through a trust far removed from actual owners. @OP: Sorry for digressing Well both the UK and French govt were literally on their knees for this contract.The boo hoo in UK was worth a watch after Typhoon lost out. Even if the shares are held by a trust i am sure it will not be difficult to find the actual trustees if some one wished. Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2
The Outsider Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 The OP's issue wasn't really "luxury" but the difference in treatment meted out by Air France based on nationality. Knowing AF's history and the snob a***** some French are he has rightlyfully vented out his frustration. People have a tendency to exaggerate after such incidents. Glancing through the blog entry, I don't find any issue where Air France discriminated on the basis of nationality. If the French government refuses to give people transit visas - and it is a well known fact that it is not easy to get transit visas on the spot in many European countries - what has Air France got to do with it? Air France might be a crap airlines, but this isn't exactly a secret. To avoid such situations one can always get a $50-100 transit visa of the country you are transiting in beforehand, spend $15 for a nice meal at any restaurant in the airport instead of relying on airline vouchers, carry some basic warm change of clothes in your hand baggage. Airline ticket prices have not gone up by any substantial amount for economy travel for close to two decades, whereas the cost of everything else has shot up. How can one expect the same level of service? There was a time when my personal entertainment screen on British Airways went off for around half an hour. They gave me a duty free voucher of 50 pounds for it. No airlines will do it today.
Crookbond Posted October 30, 2013 Posted October 30, 2013 People have a tendency to exaggerate after such incidents. Glancing through the blog entry, I don't find any issue where Air France discriminated on the basis of nationality. If the French government refuses to give people transit visas - and it is a well known fact that it is not easy to get transit visas on the spot in many European countries - what has Air France got to do with it? Air France might be a crap airlines, but this isn't exactly a secret. To avoid such situations one can always get a $50-100 transit visa of the country you are transiting in beforehand, spend $15 for a nice meal at any restaurant in the airport instead of relying on airline vouchers, carry some basic warm change of clothes in your hand baggage. Airline ticket prices have not gone up by any substantial amount for economy travel for close to two decades, whereas the cost of everything else has shot up. How can one expect the same level of service? There was a time when my personal entertainment screen on British Airways went off for around half an hour. They gave me a duty free voucher of 50 pounds for it. No airlines will do it today. I agree there could be an exaggeration. In any case, there are few distinct questions 1 - Did the AF officials indeed behave rudely? 2 - Did AF deny wheelchairs to physically challenged people on the premise of "we don't have enough chairs"? 3 - Were there seriously a negligible percentage of people from other nationalities in the upper deck area? 4 - Considering that the flight was delayed, what are the rules to handle such situations? Did AF carry out their duties as mentioned in the rule books? Of course, you can always avoid such situations if you pay more and take care of yourself but that doesn't give any airlines a guilt free to pass to flout the rule book.
DomainK Posted November 4, 2013 Posted November 4, 2013 Reply from Air France: http://jayharishshah.blogspot.in/2013/10/reply-by-air-france-on-10th-of-october.html Reply from the blogger: http://jayharishshah.blogspot.in/2013/10/reply-to-air-france-for-their-email.html
diga Posted December 16, 2013 Posted December 16, 2013 Update from Jay Shah As suggested earlier, my brother and I met Mr Yeshwant Pawar, General Manager of South Asia along with Mr Tjalling Smit, Senior Vice President of Middle East, Gulf & India from Air France-KLM group. They wasted no time to acknowledge that the company faced a complete system failure in our case and apologized for the same. Much to our surprise, Mr Pawar assured and pointed out that a number of changes had been made following our incident with regards to future irregularities by Air France-KLM. The Meal Vouchers are now monetized instead of being itemized so that the person facing an irregularity has the right to eat whatever he/she wishes to worth €20. Air France Terminal Lounges will be accessible by passengers flying any class in case of flight cancellations, depending on the lounge capacity. Efforts were being made to make sure there are adequate number of wheel chairs at all times for passengers who need wheel chair assistance. The French Ambassador to India along with Air France-KLM officials has convened a meeting on the 4th of December (Today) with the French Embassy to discuss matters related to granting Transit Visas to all passengers who have faced a flight cancellation. The changes are welcome, as they, in some manner ensure that passengers flying Air France-KLM will at least not have to go through what we did if not a comfortable journey in total, although I wonder why these efforts weren't made earlier as flight delays/cancellations happen on a frequent basis. Mr Pawar and Mr Smit were courteous and kind enough to accept that what we had to go through was absolutely unacceptable. Even though questions like; how did the system fail? Why did it fail? What can be done to avert such an incident? These are indispensable matters which need a cardinal effort to make sure they don't arise again and their answers to these questions were not completely reassuring. Considering, there are thousands of people apart from my fellow passengers and me who have faced the same problems while flying Air France (Ref: Comments Section below), the company will have to undergo a complete overhaul with regards to handling international passengers. Regarding the compensation, they have assured me every passenger on our flight who has contacted either Air France or KLM will be offered €600 in Cash or €800 in Travel Credit. Mr Pawar expressed their helplessness towards contacting passengers who have booked tickets through travel agents, as the agents often don't share customer contact details with the airline. I therefore suggest all the passengers who wish to claim compensation and haven't contacted the airline yet, to do so soon. Nothing will take away the courtesy extended by Mr Pawar and Mr Smit in meeting me personally to assure me about the services of their company, as they too seemed regretful about the way we were treated at CDG but only time will tell if the airline has consciously made an effort and learned from our incident. They have invited me to Paris, CDG for a couple of nights to brief the station managers about our incident and educate them to avert such a crisis in the future. Although I'm not sure about the difference it'll make, I've told them that I'll get back once I've made an educated decision. I thank all of you readers once again for sharing our incident and also thank the journalists as well as lawyers who have come forward to help us voluntarily. We have been contemplating many ways by which to highlight our incident and have been working closely with a few professionals.
putrevus Posted December 16, 2013 Posted December 16, 2013 I had a horrible experience with AF more than a decade ago, our AF flight landed in Paris late , we had to catch connecting AF flight then we were told to rush to a particular gate only to find out that connecting flight had already left, so we were told we had to take another flight from another terminal . When I went to next terminal I realized just before just before gate I had lost my ticket in this melee so naturally I could not board the plane long story short I had to take help from British Airways people to get me on plane to london and then to New York after paying some fees as AF people flat out refused to handle my case for rest of weekend. During this whole time interaction with AF was horrible, half of them flat out refused to speak in English, some of them looked like they understood English but did not want to help. I have been to Paris many times later never had any problems both inside and outside the airport , I chalked out my whole experience to bad luck and some good luck as I never lost my cool during whole four hour ordeal .
Muloghonto Posted December 18, 2013 Posted December 18, 2013 Might not be feasable for the east coast dwellers here but if you live in Pacific or Mountain time zones, consider going back to Inda using Singapore Airlines/Air China/Chinese Airlines. Its normally a Seattle/LA/SF/Vancouver to Singapore/HK/Taipei to Delhi/Kolkata/Mumbai trip. I've flown this combo over the last ten years and I am quite satisfied with it. I've flown SA three times- all three times, their service was tip-top. Flights leaving at the right time, excellent food, prompt layover care in singapore, etc. Air China was efficient, though not as good on food or as well treated on layover but no bullshit either. Chinese Airlines had the worst food of the lot but its still miles better than the recycled sheep dung served in British Airways or Air France. Even back in the 90s they were **** and they are still **** now.
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