Air France is presently refreshing their cabins as part of their “Best and Beyond” project, whereby they’re investing 500 million Euros in new cabins. As part of this, Air France is going from offering angled flat seats in business class, to reverse herringbone seats, which are fully flat and feature direct aisle access. These are my favorite kind of business class seats.
Air France’s new business class product
Air France’s entire longhaul fleet should be reconfigured by the summer of 2017. Air France is starting with reconfiguring their 777s, followed by their A330s and A380s.
I had the opportunity to attend the Air France Expo in New York in June, which was the same week they launched the new business class product on the flight between Paris and New York.
Air France continues to offer the new business class product on the following frequency between Paris and New York (I love the timing of this flight, by the way, in terms of battling jetlag):
AF8 Paris to New York departing 7:10PM arriving 9:30PM
AF9 New York to Paris departing 11:35PM arriving 12:30PM (+1 day)
I’ve received a ton of questions lately about when Air France will offer the new business class product to the west coast. It looks like it’s finally on the schedule for the Paris to Los Angeles route. Air France should offer the new business class product on AF72/69 between Paris and Los Angeles as of June 1, 2015.
This flight operates with the following schedule:
AF72 Paris to Los Angeles departing 1:40PM arriving 4:20PM
AF69 Los Angeles to Paris departing 6:25PM arriving 2:15PM (+1 day)
Air France’s new business class product
Air France’s new business class product
I should add the caveat that this is of course subject to change, since these reconfiguration processes often get delayed. But if all goes as planned, Air France will finally have a competitive product to the west coast next year! As a SkyTeam flyer, I’d stick with either Alitalia or KLM out of Los Angeles, in the meantime.
Has anyone flown Air France’s new business class product yet? If so, how was it?
(Tip of the hat to @hyokjaesong)
I noticed AF has taken delivery of new 777-300ERs in 2015 and the info I find online shows that those have the old business class based on the number of seats shown on various travel and airline geek websites.
i fly Aug, 2016 lax-cdg, AF65, on an a380. will it have the new business class seats?
That's true quality and authentic spirit---most US airlines are swill. Ice cream sundaes, rude/abrasive overweight attendants, and puffery of pseudo quality. no thanks.
Hey Lucky,
Really enjoy your blog. Are AF 8 and 9 still the only East Coast flights with the new business class?
Besides seatguru (which doesn't seem to be accurate all the time), where can I look up this sort of info?
@ Brennan -- I believe so. You can look at the seatmap for a flight by doing a dummy booking, and if it has four seats per row in business class it's the new product.
It does...thanks!
AF 55 IAD to CDG is the new biz class as well. Just booked it as part of a trip to Joburg. Thanks for the dummy booking tip!
Joel--I have been having those problems with his blog lately, too! Windows 7, WE 11. It seems to help if you do not click on "show images", but just on the single title you want to read--one at a time. That solved the problem for me. (I also use Windows Live, which may be the part that is struggling with the blog.)
Yes - It does not fail unless you click on "show images." I don't use Windows Live. My guess is that there is something wrong with the header graphic in the newsletter that causes the browser to fail. Someone might want to check as to wheter that file got corrupted in the last week or so.
Beginning a few days ago your newsletter began crashing my browser. I use Outlook Express on Windows XP. When I click on "View Images" my OE crashes. Any thoughts? It has never happened on any other email.
Hi Lucky,
Great to see you turn my quick tweet to a such nice article within several hours. In the morning I received an e-mail from KLM (from which I booked 3 business class tickets from LAX to MAD via CDG during a quick flash sale a couple months ago) notifying me seat re-assignment. When logged in to re-select seats, I saw the new seat map with 1-2-1 configuration, so that how I immediately figured...
Hi Lucky,
Great to see you turn my quick tweet to a such nice article within several hours. In the morning I received an e-mail from KLM (from which I booked 3 business class tickets from LAX to MAD via CDG during a quick flash sale a couple months ago) notifying me seat re-assignment. When logged in to re-select seats, I saw the new seat map with 1-2-1 configuration, so that how I immediately figured out AF is finally flying 777 with the much anticipated new updated cabin! And I wanted my favorite blogger Lucky to know it first.
H Song
@ H Song -- Thanks for letting me know and for reading, I appreciate it!
Apologies that should read sfo to cdg not cash. Irritating spell check....
Is the flights from sfo to cash still on the old seats?
@ Marcus -- As of now, yes.
certainly a huge improvement from the crappy old seats, but the screen looks kind of small? They have so much space to make it bigger!
I just booked travel for my wife and I from Seattle to Greece, with a stopover in Paris, on Air France with Alaska miles. The outbound transatlantic is IAD-CDG on an A380-800 (old business class, but excited to be on an A380), and the return transatlantic is CDG-IAH on a 777 with the new business class. Excited for both!
I was so excited to try out the new seats next week on my flight from CDG to HND. I called AF to specifically enquire whether or not the AF272 would be operated by the new J products before booking. Sure enough a month after ticketing the config changed to the old! So pissed!!
Nice!
It's not on the schedule for November. Do you think the flight is seasonal? Or just hasn't been updates that far out?
@ Beachfan -- I think they only updated the summer schedule, and not the winter schedule yet. But no guarantee.
You had me wetting my pants (with a Z flight booked for June 17th LAX-CDG), but then I remembered that I'm on the 380 flight...not the 777. Balls. That just sucks balls.
Lucky,
On the dates I want to go in October 2015, Alaska is only showing availability on AF 65 and AF 66. I assume these are the old planes with the old crappy seats, correct?
Not worth redeeming for 62,500 + $18 each way, I assume...
@ Michael -- Double check the seatmap, and keep in mind it could change, but best I can tell those flights aren't supposed to have the new product just yet.
What is AFs availability like? Also what does it cost to redeem?
@ Chris -- 125,000 Delta SkyMiles/Alaska Mileage Plan miles/Air France FlyingBlue miles roundtrip between the US and Europe. Availability is generally fairly good.