AIR FRANCE

Downgraded on Air France, but where’s their refund?

air franceLisa and Wayne Roccaforte felt lucky to have premium economy class seats on their recent Air France flight from Paris to Houston.

With good reason: The seats have 38 inches of “pitch” and are 19 inches wide, a sharp contrast to the medieval 32 inches of legroom and 17 inches of seat space in economy class. (Seriously, folks, that should be illegal.)

But try as hard as they might, the Roccafortes couldn’t avoid Torture Class on their transatlantic flight.

“We arrived at Charles de Gaulle three hours before our flight to check in and were told that the flight was very full,” remembers Lisa Roccaforte. “The woman that checked us in told us we may be moved to business class.”
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Who’s responsible for those little brats on a plane?

Alexei Losevich/Shutterstock
Alexei Losevich/Shutterstock
When kids misbehave on a plane, adults like to play the blame game. Who’s responsible for the little brats: the kids, the negligent parents, or the laissez-fare airline?

That’s what Claire Muller-Moseley, a college professor from San Francisco, wanted to know after enduring a recent Air France flight from Paris to San Francisco. And it’s a timely question, given the recent report of a family who was removed from a United Airlines flight amid a disagreement about the inflight entertainment choices.

“The yelling, screaming, and seat kicking of the two children seated behind us was not once stopped by the parents,” she remembers. “I issued disapproving glances over the back of my seat several times, without the parents’ reaction or effort to stop the ear-piercing vocalizations and bad behavior.”
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100,000 miles, $194 and a one-week delay — and you offer this?

To fly from San Francisco to Paris last month, Kenneth Cook forked over 100,00 miles and paid a $194 fee 10 months before his scheduled flight. The routing wasn’t ideal — it sent him via Denver and Frankfurt, but for that, he was getting choice seats in the front of the plane.

The least he expected was the see his luggage at the end of the journey, and that if he didn’t, the airline would take care of everything.

It didn’t.
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Air France offered us an upgrade — then it didn’t

To the back of the plane with you! / Photo by Pat Card - Flickr
Brian Lee and Alisha Singh were looking forward to their Air France flight the same way all of us used to anticipate flying, and a few of us still do.

They were traveling from New York to Paris on an Air France Airbus A380, the famous double-decker superjumbo, and in premium economy class. “We were very excited,” he says.
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What’s the real reason for my flight delay?

Question: In late December, my Air France flight from Paris to Strasbourg was delayed because of an electrical problem. We returned to the terminal 2-1/2 hours later only to find ourselves stuck in a mess of weather delays and cancellations — with having to wait in a two-hour-long line multiple times — only to have each subsequent flight canceled.
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Why haven’t I been charged for my honeymoon flight?

Here’s a question that came to me by way of the Monday afternoon Washington Post chat on travel (and by the way, if you haven’t dropped in to ask a question, please do). Karen Luong booked her honeymoon flights from Baltimore to Naples, Italy through Orbitz in mid-June. She received reservation number from the online agency, but hasn’t been charged yet.

How can she be sure she has a ticket?

This is a question that’s come up a time or two. What, exactly, is a ticket? Is it a record locator? A ticket number? A reservation number for your online travel agency?
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Sent back to square one on a ticket refund — what’s next?

At what point in the ticket refund game do you say “enough”? After a year? Two years? Or is it the amount of hassle that makes you throw your hands in the air in exasperation?

Sometimes it’s a combination of time and trouble, and Mindy Farabee has both.

Last May, she applied for a ticket refund from Air France, a process that would take no more than three months, she was promised. At the end of July, she contacted the airline again to determine the status of the refund.

I have talked to three people, one of whom says he has never heard of the person helping me although he’s been in web support for years. The last person I talked to said they have no record at all of my refund request. I was given a new fax number and told to start over.

As they say in France, c’est ridicule!
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15 comments