Air France's "Other" Miami Flight: Awesome Or Awful?

Air France’s “Other” Miami Flight: Awesome Or Awful?

Updated: August 4, 2021

Published: January 7, 2019

One of the cool things about living in Miami is the new routes and airlines that it opens up, in particular for travel to Latin America. There are a fascinating array of airlines, to the point that I’m surprised by at least one plane or airline just about every time I pull up to the airport.

Well hello there, Swift Air!

To me one of the most fascinating flights to Miami is operated by Air France. No, I’m not talking about Air France’s flight to Paris, which is operated seasonally by an A380.

An Air France A380, which you may expect to see in Miami

Rather I’m talking about the fascinating island hopper flight that Air France has out of Miami. Many people don’t realize this, but Air France operates a small fleet of Airbus A320s out of the Caribbean, which primarily operate flights to & from French territories.

Air France A320

Air France’s Caribbean division has two US destinations — Miami and Atlanta. One of the flights out of Miami is a direct flight with three stops, and I can’t decide whether it’s awesome or just plane awful-sounding.

Air France operates a 3x weekly flight from Miami to Cayenne, French Guiana, via Port au Prince, Haiti, Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, and Fort de France, Martinique.

While the flight “only” covers a total distance of 2,454 miles, the flight takes a total of 9hr25min southbound and 10hr15min northbound.

Air France stays true to their onboard product on this route, which is to say that business class simply consists of economy seats with a blocked middle and better food and drinks.

Air France’s regional business class

Air France’s regional business class catering

I find this flight to be so unique, and am really tempted to take it. The paid business class fares are even quite reasonable, at $576 one-way.

But I keep going back and forth in my head between being fascinated by this route and wanting to book it, and asking myself what the heck is wrong with me that I want to spend 10 hours on a plane configured this uncomfortably.

This flight actually might just be worse than Lufthansa’s Frankfurt to Pune flight on a regionally configured aircraft, since at least that flight is nonstop, and at least that flight has Wi-Fi. Heck, it might be a less comfortable way to get to South America than taking American’s 737 MAX 8 to Brazil!

What do you guys think — does spending 10+ hours on an Air France A320 hopping around the Caribbean sound awesome or awful?

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Sorcerer Guest

January 20, 2020, 7:29 am

@TProphet. thank you for your post! I'm now seriously considering doing this and flying back from Paramaribo to Amsterdam. Have you done this trip solo? Would really like to learn some more about your itinerary, did you write a blog or something about it? Also do you get 5XP in economy for each leg, even if you don't get off the plane there? That would be an awesome way to score some Flying Blue XP points :)

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Peter Brown Guest

January 8, 2019, 1:07 pm

Good suggestions. Thank you

Pierre Diamond

January 8, 2019, 12:47 pm

@Ben, In the same vein, you might consider testing the UA 737 between Honolulu and Guam which stops, I think, 7 times and crosses the date line. At 2 or 3 of the stops, passengers are confined on board because one place is the biological warfare center for the US, Kwajalein or something like that, (window blinds down with guard on board) and at others there simply is no structure able to accomodate a planeload. Passengers on then Continental had once a hell week when they had 2 serious mechanicals on the same trip, involving 2 727s, the original and the relief one flown from either Honolulu or Guam. They basically stayed on board for 5 days.

David Guest

January 8, 2019, 12:42 pm

I flew this flight a couple of years ago, in business class. It was great! The crew was based in PTP. The food kept coming at each stop. The champagne was good. Fantastic views of the Caribbean. I will take it again next year.

Doug New Member

January 8, 2019, 11:47 am

I think Leeza1 is correct and pricing the legs individually comes close to three grand, but it looks like you can book an overnight connection in PTP or FDF for a few bucks more ($603) and this should get you 2x24 XP as a pair of medium legs. It's the same flight number but operating a day later out of PTP or FDF. That also breaks up the trip a bit. Unfortunately the return direction is quite a bit higher (about double). The XP calculator appears to confirm 24 points even though the PTP/FDF to CAY leg could possibly be construed as "domestic" I've still got a pile of FB left over from a crazy match by KLM of my UA balance way back when and would love to burn some off in F with a visit to the lounge in CDG and this trip, once, with some SEA-YVR on DL in J could be a good way to do it.

Air France’s “Other” Miami Flight: Awesome Or Awful?

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