Having finally arrived on our annual pilgrimage, I have to say Air France was disappointing. I am usually a huge fan of the airline in a day and age where airline travel has become so horrible, Air France usually treats its passengers with some style and class. It is always a lovely experience from start to finish.
This trip, however, was disappointing. I was scheduled to fly with Avril on Tuesday evening from Newark Liberty to Charles DeGaule. I expected to leave my house at 3:45 p.m. for a 7 p.m. flight, since it does require extra time to check-in with the dog and clear her through the TSA. At 2:00 p.m. I received a telephone call from someone at Air France advising me that there was a problem with my flight, due to labor problems in Paris, Delta was managing my flight and had an embargo on accepting dogs in the summer. I was given the choice of flying Continental at 9:45 from Newark, or heading to JFK to fly at 10:45 p.m. on Air France. As you can imagine, I was very upset, D. was already in Paris waiting for me to arrive. We had friends flying to meet us on Thursday. Air France gave me another option of flying on Thursday which was impossible. I could not understand, and was provided no explanation for why I received this call at such a late date and time. Several days earlier, I had received an email from Air France advising me that the flight numbers had changed because Delta would be managing the flight, but it said nothing about problems if traveling with the dog (or any other animals).
It took two hours to work through the problems. I had to contact D. in France via text and telephone. Several telephone calls with Air France back and forth. We had paid for me to flight the premiere economy class, one level below business class, but not quite cattle in economy. Air France would not guarantee me that level of ticket on the later flight from JFK. Likewise they would not agree to pay Continental the $700 it would cost to ship the dog via Continental horrid pet-safe program where the dog is treated like freight. Been there/done that and it did not work for us. Avril was horribly traumatized on that flight.
By the time we reached an agreement, I was told I could only get on the 1:20 a.m. flight from JFK, arriving at 2:30 p.m., killing an entire day of the trip. I had anticipated arriving at 8:30 a.m. and driving south to arrive at our house at about 4 p.m. Ultimately, we arrived at 11:30 p.m. after driving 7 hours with only 1 stop.
We started late because the flight left late, nearly 2 a.m. arriving after 3:00 p.m. Then due to the labor issues, it took nearly an hour to receiving the dog from the hold. She was dehydrated as her water bottle malfunctioned, even though I had filled it with ice, it had leaked. Although she has now recovered well. At JFK at least the staff was pleasant to me and the dog, and I was ultimately upgraded to business class.
At the time I was negotiating with the airline about the problems, since they could not guarantee me my ticket level, and for the inconvenience, they agreed to a voucher for $215.00 which I then used to pay for Avril's passage. At least they were efficient and had the ability to e-mail me everything.
But again, disappointing that the airline contacted me so late, and with such stress placed on me. At least we have arrived safely and can now begin the real journey.
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