Low cost carrier French Bee will be launching yet another route to the United States.
In this post:
French Bee’s new flight to Los Angeles
French Bee will be launching a new route between Paris Orly (ORY) and Los Angeles (LAX) as of April 2022. The flight will initially operate 4x weekly as of April, and then frequencies will increase to 6x weekly as of July. The flight will operate with the following schedule:
BF730 Paris to Los Angeles departing 2:50PM arriving 5:15PM
BF731 Los Angeles to Paris departing 7:45PM arriving 3:35PM (+1 day)
The service will cover a distance of ~5,700 miles in each direction, and is blocked at 12hr25min westbound and 10hr50min eastbound. French Bee will use an Airbus A350-900 for the route, featuring a total of 411 seats — this includes 35 premium economy seats and 376 economy seats.
Fares for the Los Angeles service start at $279 one-way in economy, or $661 one-way in premium economy. Keep in mind French Bee is an ultra low cost carrier, so the base economy fare includes very few services.
The new flight is already on sale. French Bee will be going head-to-head against both Air France and Air Tahiti Nui in the market, as both airlines fly between Paris and Los Angeles (and for that matter those two airlines also fly to Tahiti out of Los Angeles). Back in the day Norwegian also operated the route, but that airline stopped long haul operations.
With French Bee launching flights to Los Angeles, the airline has established an interline agreement with Alaska Airlines, to provide connectivity opportunities for passengers.
Basics of French Bee & the carrier’s A350
For those not familiar with French Bee, the airline commenced operations in 2016. French Bee operates a fleet of four Airbus A350-900s, and in the near future the carrier will expand with a further two Airbus A350-1000s (featuring a staggering 488 seats).
As you’d expect based on those numbers, French Bee is all about cramming as many seats as possible onto planes. On the A350-900:
- The 376 economy seats have a respectable 32″ of pitch, though seats are only 16-17″ wide, as the airline has 10 seats per row on the A350 (most airlines have nine)
- The 35 premium economy seats are in a 2-3-2 configuration, and seats feature 36″ of pitch and 18″ of width
Currently French Bee operates the following routes:
- Paris (ORY) to San Francisco (SFO) to Tahiti (PPT)
- Paris (ORY) to Newark (EWR)
- Paris (ORY) to Reunion (RUN)
That means Los Angeles will be French Bee’s fifth destination with nonstop or direct service from Paris, and the third destination in the United States.
Bottom line
French Bee will be launching a new route between Paris and Los Angeles as of April 2022. The flight will initially operate 4x weekly, but next summer it will be operated up to 6x weekly.
This is a great new option for consumers — there’s not currently a low cost competitor between Paris and Los Angeles, and for that matter there’s fairly limited competition in the market (no US airlines operate the route). While this is a long flight on an A350 with 10 seats per row, if you’re looking for the best price, French Bee will probably be the way to go.
What do you make of French Bee’s new route to LAX?
Delta had LAX-CDG flights before the pandemic. I wish they restarted it, the schedule was great and the seats better than Air France.
Yeah i think id rather fly Baltia than this airline...
Be aware of their check-in deadline. It closes 1.5 hour before departure.
As long it's not a wanky pretentious setup, like JOON 'the airline for millennials'. [eye roll]
RE economy seat pitch & with .. Didn't the US Supreme court outlaw "cruel and unusual punishment"?
It looks like they're also going to be flying from San Francisco to Tahiti and from Los Angeles to the Tahiti. If you go into the extra cost items like extra legroom seats etc it says that traveling from Paris to Los Angeles is considered one flight and traveling from Paris to Tahiti through Los Angeles is considered two flights and it gives the same example for San Francisco so it looks like they're going...
It looks like they're also going to be flying from San Francisco to Tahiti and from Los Angeles to the Tahiti. If you go into the extra cost items like extra legroom seats etc it says that traveling from Paris to Los Angeles is considered one flight and traveling from Paris to Tahiti through Los Angeles is considered two flights and it gives the same example for San Francisco so it looks like they're going to be running Los Angeles to Tahiti Service as well. Just look at their extra charges under leg room.
I would likely do CDG-LAX daytime flight in PE barring any other options. LAX-CDG overnight is a hard no.
What about regular economy 10 across
Filling the niche carved out by Norwegian no doubt.