In September 2024, Air France announced plans to introduce free high speed Wi-Fi throughout its fleet, reinforcing its position as Europe’s most premium global airline (along with all of its other product investments).
Continue reading: Air France’s Swift Starlink Wi-Fi Rollout: 60% Done, Fleetwide By End Of 2026
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
AF/KL is a great airline, and FlyingBlue an excellent program. AF best for the food (and wine!) KL for their timeliness and Delft Blue Houses!
Flying Blue is a pile of rubbish when it comes to redemptions. A minimum of 85k for six hours in business class to DSS is scandalous, particularly as it's just 60k all the way to LAX. Scrapping the partner award chart has accompanied a move from zonal pricing to penalising passengers for having to take connecting flights.
I used to be Gold and trying to keep FB as my main SkyTeam programme, now I only use it because of the free double-dipping with Accor.
To be fair, I'll happily fly AF in long haul business class, but 'great' airlines don't try to get away with serving a crappy quinoa salad to premium pax on 4-hour flights, nor do they keep food uncovered in lounges where mice have been living for decades. @1990 , please recalibrate your expectations - Aegean and TAP are on a completely different level when it comes to European business class service.
Gotta find the Promo Rewards (usually on the first of each month, offering discounts of up to 25%, sometimes more.) As for Senegal, isn't that at least widebody (330 or 772?), so lie-flat for J. I mean, to some, that may not be ideal, but to other 85K (worth $850) might be decent use. The Accor partnership is indeed helpful.
Meals on 4-hour flights? Some US carriers don't even serve meals on those anymore! (Maybe I'm viewing this from a US-lens.) I've been on Aegean and TAP. Personally, I prefer the nostalgia of Olympic and the old Athens airport (I think they still have a graffiti'd 747 there.) TAP's narrowbody a321XLR/neo with lie-flat is excellent. Enjoyed it on EWR-OPO.
Was pleasantly surprised that I got to fly with Starlink on both of my AF flights in April (especially when AF sent an email saying the long-haul flight wasn't going to have it). Best part of the situation was being able to stream an NBA playoff game in full fidelity. Glad to see them progressing with the install so quickly, will be flying them again early 2027.
Too bad their inferior ST partners You Know Who have chosen a more inferior path forward (in a few years, no big hurry)
I sincerely hope that Air France limits and/or prohibits the use of voice calls and enforces the use of headphones for each passenger?! Otherwise it'll be a very tough flight for everyone!
I experienced it on several AF flights and found it surprisingly slow.
I wonder if there is a limit per connection or if someone can simply cannibalize all the bandwidth by streaming or downloading heavy content ?
A pity that KLM planes won't be getting the fast Starlink, only Viasat/Panasonic. Even SAS getting Starlink.
@1990,the fact that it's lie flat doesn't really help when the flight is too short for anything more than a quick nap! It's also worth mentioning that redemptions on AF metal between Europe and Africa cost fewer VS points than FB miles.
I think you're definitely framing things from a US perspective re service. For my latest flight from Morocco, AF had the audacity to promise a hot meal on the app. Of course I knew it wasn't going to happen and ate in the lounge. When I mentioned it to the FA, she asked me to file a written complaint. The response to my email proceeded to further insult my intelligence by ignoring the whole point I'd been making about misleading pax with the false advertising in the app and saying that they don't offer the same meals on all flights (tell me something I don't know!). When I responded to call them out on it, they just didn't write back. I'm pretty laid back when it comes to people having a bad day at work but I have no patience for systemically evil tw@ts.
Contract constraints with Viasat/Panasonic - They will move to Starlink after for sure, around 2030
Starlink or any other WiFi might be a necessity for some business travellers, it might well be a nice to have facility for some, however, for the vast majority of leisure travellers it is just a means of feeding their addiction to it.
No news about their upcoming A350s getting Starlink though. I doubt KLM had a contract with Viasat to equip all of their future planes as well.