Earlier, I shared my experience flying Air France’s La Premiere first class on the carrier’s first flight featuring the new cabins (as a reminder, I traveled as a guest of the airline). I mentioned that Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith was on the flight, and several readers asked what it’s like to fly with an…
Continue reading: My Flight With Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith…
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Did you ask him why AF award availability has been nearly non-existent since they upped the minimum price to 60k in January?
@ Pauls98 -- I did point out a few minor things, and he was grateful for the feedback, asked follow-up questions, and even wrote down some notes about them.
@ Zack -- I'll simply say that I'm always advocating for offering value with frequent flyer programs, and I definitely harassed him on some points when it comes to Flying Blue. 😉
Ben, no picture? You treat this like an everyday occurrence. You need to respect him and realize who he is. You need to think about us, not just yourself!!!
"(I don’t think anyone has hired more passionate people off FlyerTalk than him)."
Maybe a naive/johnny-come-lately question, but are you suggesting that he's literally just grabbing folks who know their stuff on FT and giving them jobs? Are these current executive-level folks who contribute, or he just finds someone knowledgeable and then hires them?
he ain't the paparazzi and this ain't E!, we got the pics of the product that we come here for.
@ digital_notmad -- I'm not saying it's happening anymore, but rather we're talking back in the day. He has hired several people who he saw potential in, including based on the knowledge they've shown on FlyerTalk. Some now have senior leadership positions at both Air Canada and Air France-KLM. He does a good job finding people he sees potential in, and going from there...
@ Stefan -- Hah, he was already asked for so many pictures on the flight, I didn't want to add yet another request.
Got it, that makes sense. Still pretty cool of him, and seems to have worked well too.
I hope you were able to point out that the Flying Blue program has not been releasing saver award inventory for many weeks or months at their opening window. At the very least, there should have been some token level of award redemption for increasing the award rate.
Will either Ben going to hire Tim Dunn?
Ed wants his rear to be left alone and dry.
So the question that is no doubt on everyone's lips:
Why does Mr. Smith prefer the 747-200 over the 747-400??
I worked with Ben for quite a few years at AC. He is by far the most knowledgeable person about the industry that I've ever met.
He is a true visionary.
Well @Ben Schlappig that is the most surprising news of the week I heard.
When do we OMAAT commentators get a job? 😉
Ben, thanks for providing such exciting stuff to read, and btw, have you had a conversation in regards to opening up award seats? I have 2 more months with my Flying Blue status, and I wish I would be able to redeem miles for this one.
That's the attitude why your site is my declared favorite regarding air travel. Fair, reliable, decent. I noticed this in many of your articles.
Did you use your influencer status to ask him about all the extra business class saver awards that were supposed to appear when the sudden devaluation recently occured?
I hope that his justification isn't so scandalous that he made it 'off the record.'
Thanks for this "review", Ben. As a manager at an airline (nowhere close to his caliber), this is inspiring, and I'd wish to see more airline leaders of his character and passion.
One thing I love about our industry is that people usually choose to be in it, and how passionate many of us are about it. Airlines aren't necessarily the best place for money or prestige, but it is a passionate business that is highly interesting, competitive, and multi-faceted.
Leadership that exemplifies this passion for the industry and for the customer makes a huge difference. Ultimately, this business is about moving people, and this comes in many ways.
I applauded him for accepting the offer
It is obvious that he was going to interact heavily with AF corporate as it is pretty obvious that he is acquainted with plenty of other airline CEOs, given his full time occupation and web prominence.
But the tone of the article (eg ‘several readers asked what it’s like to fly with an airline CEO’) and the overall way the story was told have not increased my respect
for this website. In all, we readers are the target and we can choose to trust other sources, and i will continue to read Ben (Schlappig) with the caveat that he is -like everyone else- someone
with his very own agenda
It's interesting to see employees of a French company on a first-name basis with the CEO, as French business culture is infamously stuffy and formal. No doubt the boss's Canadian background has much to do with this.
This isn't my view of him. He's corporate and refuses to engage with ordinary passengers who reach out to him. He he hides behind customer services department and will not reply or respond. So much so that I'm now doing everything to avoid Air France and KLM.
I would have asked him why KLM short haul business class food is so incredibly awful while they are constantly increasing fares. (Air France doesn't have this problem). It's a constant topic on the FB AF/KLM frequent flyer groups.
Probably because some 742s retained 9ab Y (though I believed that 9ab was gone with original 741s), whereas all 744s were delivered with tight 10ab Y.
You can imagine that 9ab 741/742s were as royally spacious as 10ab A380s.
Not just shorthaul business food, any business food on KLM. Longhaul meals are a disaster too to the point that I simply refuse to fly KL longhaul (whereas AF on the other hand is among my preferred airlines).
Which examples do you have in mind? I don't know a single French company where people don't use first name basis in the Paris Office including... BNP, SocGen, L'Oréal, LVMH, SNCF, Total, AXA.... Some small businesses are a bit more formal, but this habit has mostly disappeared 20 years ago
The French we are taught in Canadian high schools and universities is NOT Quebecois French but a standardized French that works very well in France merci beaucoup. So unless Ben Smith spent a lot of time in Quebec picking up local "slang", and even then, I am sure he gets along very well with his French among his Air France colleagues.
The SS Vaterland was a steamship owned and operated by the Hamburg America Line. She was the largest ocean liner in the world at the time of her launch in 1913. And what a magnificent beauty she was, a brilliant achievement of marine engineering and design. She was so much more graceful than her clunky rival, Cunard's stodgy RMS Aquitania.
Vaterland had a very short career. She plied the Atlantic for only two months before World War I forced her to be laid up at Hamburg America's piers in Hoboken, New Jersey. The Americans seized her after the US entered the war in 1917. She then had a brief career as a troop carrier before being transferred over to the United States Line and becoming the SS Leviathan. Unfortunately, the Americans weren't particularly adept at operating grand ocean liners. The Leviathan had a thoroughly insignificant and utterly forgettable career. She was just a tired shadow of the magnificent Vaterland. Leviathan's existence as a mediocre transatlantic liner ended in 1933. She was laid up (the Americans loved having their ocean liners just lying around, forgotten and rotting off in some obscure corner) until 1946 when she was unceremoniously scrapped.
I have a personal interest in SS Vaterland. My grandparents returned to Europe aboard her in June, 1914 after their honeymoon in the American West.
Thanky you for your extensive elaboration. I have to sincerely apologise but myabe you can understand what made me have wrong assumptions.
Ben was hired by Robert Milton at AC in the early 2000’s. He was instrumental in building a combined CP/AC schedule when the 2 airlines merged. A true airline “geek” said with respect.
How much time do you think a CEO of a large company can dedicate to dealing with individual customers?
Why are you so scared to say what you really said to him? Your puff piece notwithstanding, Flying Blue is offering no value right now and I wish you had called him on it and asked for an explanation.
Did he take one of their famous short connection flights where he had to run for his life to get the plane, even it was delayed on both sides? Seems to be a specialty of Air France.
I flew AF LAX-CDG-ARN back in March. Returned KLM ARN-AMS-LAX. LOVED THEM BOTH!! Service and crews were outstanding! I'll be flying them again!!! The big three in the USA are no match!!!