This is the mail that I sent to Air france 3 times and so far no response from them. Hence, I thought I should post it here so that I join the club of "Air france Sick".
I had a return ticket with the following details and was traveling back from New castle to Bangalore, via Paris on 16th Dec 2012.
I would like to bring to the notice of Air France about an incident, that could have been handled in a normal way, was handled in a pathetic way causing lots of frustration, disappointment and mental and physical stress.
At New castle, the officer at the check in counter was courteous and helped complete all the formalities and issued the tickets. However, once all of us boarded the flight and the boarding gates were closed at 6.15 AM, the ground handling / maintenance people brought their de-icing equipment and started spraying the chemical on the carrier. This took about 20-30 minutes. Another 20 minutes taken to get a green signal from the traffic control. Probably the de icing process could have been done much before the boarding and we could have avoided precious time ( precious here because I had only 1 hour and 10 minutes gap for the next flight at Paris). This has been a practice at Frankfurt, and I appreciate their process.
Due to all the above delays, AF 1559 landed 50 minutes late at Paris and reached the parking slot at 10 10AM. We were 5 of us in the flight for Bangalore AF 192. AF could not manage us reaching the gate on time. However, after the tedious security check we landed at the gate at 10.40 and the gate had just closed with the flight still at the gate. We requested the captain through the desk manager un successfully. The reason given to us was there was no parking space available so, AF192 had to move. However, we were watching the flight move only at 11.10 AM!!
Now coming to the point, the mental agony I underwent from the time I boarded the flight at New castle was beyond control. Please note the following.
1.Even though I had specifically requested for a veg meal, there was nothing available on the flight at New castle, except for some soft drinks. So, I had to miss by break fast. Having reached at 4 AM, till 11.00 AM, I guess this is the punishment I could get for having flown through AF.
2.The officers kept promising many things and but could not manage for a small snack or even a bottle of water ( as a courtesy at least) at the transfer desk. They managed to get some non veg food around 3.30 pm after some of the passengers and children started feeling dizzy and complaining. I appreciate the only lady who was trying to console us and help us out.
3.Finally, we were allowed to go out with the transit visa at 4.30 pm and reached a hotel booked by AF around 5.30 PM only to find that there is no restaurant at the hotel till 7 pm and it opened only at 7 pm. Really a horrible situation for being a vegetarian.
I am not sure how much your organization understand about hundreds of such situations happening at your airports due to such unplanned or unorganized processes. But, I am annoyed and have felt miserable. For all that agony, I underwent, initially I thought of forgetting the situation and only wished that this is the last such flight on AF. However, given the conditions, I may use AF again but with a careful note.
I urge to consider this mail as a formal complaint and want to know what are the rules the EU or your organization has, as a “right to customer” and I demand compensation as per the rule. Please forward the copy of the rule so that I am aware of it, for future incidents ( which I do not wish to have).