NEVER FLY AIR FRANCE

Here is my copy of the complaint letter that Air France will be receiving from Jan & Jim.

Dear Barbara

Mr J Alsop & Mrs J Alsop
Air France AF2271 11th October 2007
Air France AF0990 11th October 2007

After speaking to you last week about the unsatisfactory service we had received through Air France on our outbound journey, I write to formally submit a complaint.

Firstly, I am angry that my experience was not dealt with immediately. I called last week whilst in South Africa and after a half an hour International phone call, the only thing resolved was that I must write a letter (on your website under the contact details you have a telephone number for customer complaints, if complaints cannot be made over the phone, why list a telephone number to call, if the service consultant will only say “complaints can only be made in writing”?).

If service really does mean something to Air France, action would have been taken straight away. An immediate compensation agreement or even an upgrade would have been sufficient enough to ease both mine & my wife’s fears of flying home, and would have put some faith back into our opinion of Air France. Unfortunately this was not the case, and I am spending the first day back from my holiday having to write this letter.

On arrival at Heathrow (at the allocated 3 hours before our flight departure to Johannesburg) we checked in at the Air France desk and all appeared to be fine.
The London to Paris flight AF2271 was delayed by 40 minutes, at this time we did not panic as we had been told that the connecting long haul flights will always wait in Paris. On arriving in Paris at 23:05 we were told the plane had left without us. I understand it does take some time to get us to the plane & our luggage transferred but surely the plane could have waited and left 30 minutes late (The Johannesburg flight was due to leave at 23:15) I have been on numerous flights and planes very rarely leave on time.

Recalling back to the waiting area in Heathrow, all flights seem to be delayed due to fog, so surely when checking in it was known the flight would be delayed, and it may have been best to transfer us on to an earlier Paris flight.

Our ticket was purchased as a flight from London to Johannesburg; it is the fault of Air France that the connecting flight was not met by us. With a delay of only 40 minutes it meant we missed the Paris to Johannesburg flight, your timings are seriously wrong when making bookings from London to Johannesburg and don’t allow for even very minor delays.

There was to be an early flight from Paris to Johannesburg the following morning, unfortunately we were informed this was fully booked, so we would be transferred to Amsterdam where we would be put on a later flight the next day. At this point, I was amazed that action was not taken to find space on the next Paris flight. Unfortunately there was nothing we could do other than what we were instructed to do.

New tickets were issued in Paris by Dela Hodde (Air France Staff), he ensured us that our luggage would be travelling with us and would be in Johannesburg when we arrived. (As it transpires this was not the case).

All Johannesburg passengers (as we were not the only ones) were transferred to Amsterdam and we were put up in a “hotel” until we had to be transferred back to Amsterdam Airport. Pick up was at 5am, therefore only managing 3 hours in the “hotel”. In hindsight this was a good thing, as the “hotel” was very unsatisfactory, we were given a room where we actually had to check the bed sheets, as the overall impression of the rooms were sleazy, and we were left itching. I would expect the hotels that you are linked with to reflect the brand of Air France!!! (After a return flight with Air France, I am now under the impression that this hotel is truly a reflection of Air France’s standards).

So now it is 5am the following day, we should have been 3 hours away from Johannesburg, instead we had flown twice and were still only in Amsterdam, being the start of day 2 in the same clothes.

Arriving back at Amsterdam airport (now tired & hungry – missing breakfast, which only started at 5 am in the “hotel”). We were directed straight to the departure gate by KLM staff. On arrival at the gate we took the queue and waited, when it was our time to board we were told we did not have boarding cards – we had to go back to the check in desk and get some. At this point the check in desk was at least a mile away, my wife and I had to run back and receive the boarding cards.
Firstly we had specifically been told to go straight to boarding by KLM staff, secondly why didn’t KLM staff help us back to check in, and thirdly I am a 55 year old man with arthritis & had been awake for over 24 hours – and we had to rush as fast as we could there and back. On returning to the boarding gate of course we were sweating, and due to Air France –we had no change of clothing. Therefore we were to take an 11 hour flight, feeling unclean & uncomfortable, and as it turns out we were still another 24 hours away from receiving our luggage.

KLM flight KL591 arrived in Johannesburg at about 21:15pm on 12th October 2007 over 12 hours later than expected. Our journey & experience with Air France was not over there. We went to pick up our luggage to be told that it was still in Paris. This was funny seeing as we had specifically been ensured by Dela Hodde that our luggage will be with us. The luggage would be arriving the following morning and we would have to return to the International terminal to pick it up.

Arriving at Johannesburg Airport, we had domestic flights booked to Durban. Friends in Cape Town, when hearing we were now on the KLM Amsterdam flight, had had to change the domestic flights and book us into a hotel, as there are no domestic flights to Durban after 9pm. As our friends knew, because we were on the plane, we would not know any of this on arrival at Johannesburg. They phoned Air France at Johannesburg airport and were assured that someone from KLM/Air France would meet us off the flight and let us know the new details. At around 10:30pm we were still walking aimlessly around Johannesburg airport wondering what to do. No one from Air France tried to locate us, even after promises that this would be done. We thought this could have been the least that should have been done for all our troubles.

At this point my wife was in tears of fear, this was our first long haul flight and first time in South Africa. With the media hype about Johannesburg we really did fear for our safety. When 2 people come off an Air France flight in tears and wanting to turn around and go home – is this a reflection of good customer service? I think not, and would be greatly amazed if you think this is expectable.

Finally, after numerous International phone calls on my mobile, I was able to reach our friends for the details. We headed to the hotel and returned early to pick up our luggage, which now meant time was tight with our new domestic flights that had been booked (our friends not expecting our luggage to arrive 12 hours after us). I understand that we did not book the South African domestic flights with Air France, but when I originally gave myself 5 hours to get from the Air France Johannesburg flight to a Durban Mango flight – I expect to reach my destination as planned.

24 hours late we picked up our luggage and we were finally on our way to Durban, after a 36 hour journey from London to Johannesburg – a journey that should have taken 12.

Inline with the service we received on our outbound journey, the same incapability of Air France was met on our return journey. On arrival in Paris, de ja vu occurred and we were told the flight had been cancelled. Our daughter was already on her way to Heathrow airport to pick us up, we had to tell her to drive back, we were eventually told we could be put on a flight as, as you can imagine we were very irate and a few harsh words got us on the plane. This makes us wonder maybe these harsh words should have been spoken in Paris 2 weeks ago, and maybe something could have been sorted, and are holiday not ruined.

Due to the 40 minutes delay in London Heathrow we incurred the following expenses. The least that should be expected from Air France would be the full reimbursement of all these expenses, which do not even take into account the days of our holiday lost, tours that had to be cancelled in Durban because we were arriving late, the fact we had to stay in the same clothes for 3 days, and the apprehension that we suffered the rest of the holiday dreading the flight home & not fully being able to relax. For this I wonder if Air France is big enough to admit its mistakes or at least care about the experience their customers have and provide additional compensation.

£41.32 Change of Domestic flights
£51.56 Hotel
£13.85 Taxi to hotel
£5.07 shuttle back to airport
£35.00 International phone calls (excluding cost of talking to customer care whilst in South Africa).

You may not think our £650 ticket each is a lot of money, but to us we work the whole year to save up for a nice holiday and to pay this amount for the service we received from Air France is despicable.

Have just seen Jan & Jim were not the only ones with Air France problems. When you type in "air france blog" you get the following complaints at http://www.blogjam.com/2005/12/08/air-farce/
and there's a whole blog at avoidairfrance.blogspot.com