Air France has just revealed plans to launch a new route to the United States, and I don’t think this addition will shock anyone.
In this post:
Air France adds Paris to Orlando route
As of May 21, 2025, Air France will launch a new year-round flight between Paris (CDG) and Orlando (MCO). The flight will operate 4x weekly with the following schedule:
AF96 Paris to Orlando departing 5:05PM arriving 8:45PM
AF97 Orlando to Paris departing 11:00PM arriving 1:30PM (+1 day)
The 4,507-mile flight is blocked at 9hr40min westbound and 8hr30min eastbound. The flight will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, in both directions.
Air France will use an Airbus A350-900 for the service, featuring 324 seats. This includes 34 business class seats, 24 premium economy seats, and 266 economy class seats (this will be Air France’s old A350 configuration, and not the new A350 configuration).
How Orlando route fits in Air France’s network
Orlando will be Air France’s 18th destination in the United States, and 25th destination in North America.
Orlando is of course a popular destination in the United States for those looking to go to amusement perks, and those wanting warm weather and sun. There’s not really a dominant US carrier in Orlando, as there’s substantial service from all of the “big three” US carriers, plus Southwest, low cost carriers, etc.
When it comes to long haul service, Orlando is quirky. Looking at the “big three” airline alliances, the only consistent, year-round transatlantic flights to Orlando are on British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, given how much Brits love the area. Delta is even operating a seasonal Orlando to London flight this winter.
There’s some other long haul service, ranging from Emirates’ Dubai flight, to Icelandair’s Keflavik flight, to Discover Airlines’ Frankfurt flight.
Ultimately this new service on the part of Air France should do reasonably well, you’d think, especially as part of the transatlantic joint venture consisting of Delta, Air France-KLM, and Virgin Atlantic:
- In summer, there’s lots of demand for Americans to travel to Europe, and there are also a surprising number of Europeans who frequently travel to Florida that time of year
- In winter, Florida is popular with Europeans, and there will also be some demand on the US-side, including for those connecting to destinations like India
Simply put, when you look at Air France’s current route map in the United States, Orlando kind of logically seems like the next destination. For context, Air France’s most recent adds in the United States prior to this have been Phoenix and Raleigh-Durham.
Bottom line
As of May 2025, Air France will launch a new 4x weekly flight between Paris and Orlando using an Airbus A350. This will be Air France’s 18th destination in the United States, and this is one of the surprisingly few year-round routes by a network carrier between Orlando and Europe.
What do you make of Air France adding service to Orlando?
A pretty safe option, in my view. Orlando has always had a huge holiday traffic of Europeans heading to Disneyworld or just wanting to enjoy the sunny weather. I wonder which cities will come up next. Maybe Nashville, Austin, Tampa, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, etc.?
It is not a new route for Air France. They are resuming the route.
Welcome back to MCO! Happy to have one more option to Europe from here (which are not a lot outside of flights to UK).
Would LOVE to see TPA-CDG on DL or AF. That would shave hours off of my thrice yearly visits to my beloved France !
While I wish TPA/CDG would be Air France, I'd even take Delta just to eliminate the two flight shuffle to get there from here. TPA is a desert for travel to continental Europe on quality carriers: I mean, seriously, who wants to fly on Discover? Our next trip to Paris is DL to JFK, and AF to Paris, and then we have to do the reverse via Boston.
A few thoughts:
- This is actually a route resumption for Air France. I also know that AF and BA once did a dual simultaneous landing of their respective Concordes at MCO a few decades ago. Glad to see AF back in Central Florida!
- I wonder whether Air France will operate out of the newer Terminal C at MCO, or if they will use Airside 4 with Delta. Most long-haul international airlines at MCO...
A few thoughts:
- This is actually a route resumption for Air France. I also know that AF and BA once did a dual simultaneous landing of their respective Concordes at MCO a few decades ago. Glad to see AF back in Central Florida!
- I wonder whether Air France will operate out of the newer Terminal C at MCO, or if they will use Airside 4 with Delta. Most long-haul international airlines at MCO have at this point transitioned operations to Terminal C (and they are currently expanding the terminal as well). However, Virgin Atlantic and LATAM are the two exceptions, as they stayed in the old terminals. I believe this was so they could facilitate easier connections from Delta flights (so those passengers wouldn't have to clear security again and transfer terminals). However, not too long ago, I saw that some Virgin Atlantic flights at MCO had moved to Airside 1 for some reason. The signs at MCO still indicate that this is the case. That made no sense to me, because that means that they are using older terminals for no reason, and if they aren't in the same terminal as Delta, they might as well utilize Terminal C (which does have gate space in the evenings and at night). However, I think it's more likely AF will use Airside 4 with Delta.
They will most likely be using Airside 4 where Delta operates out of. Delta employees work LATAM and Virgin flights and will presumably work the AF flights as well.
I know Virgin Atlantic has its own check-in and passenger service staff at MCO. I don't know about the ground handlers though. It would make sense for them to be DL staff rather than having a third party handling agency.
coupled w/ AMS-TPA on DL and VS and DL MCO-LHR , it seems that AF/DL/KL/VS are making a push for Central Florida. They have always done well there thanks in part to the size of ATL but adding nonstops helps free up seats in ATL for other traffic from other parts of the country.
AF's 350s - despite being only a few years old - have no power outlets in economy. I avoid that eqp specifically for that reason.
That's not true.
AF has two A350 configurations: the low-premium version (34J seats) does have universal AC outlets in economy, as well as USB-A.
The high-premium version (48J) does not have AC outlets in economy, but does offer USB-A and USB-C in each economy seat.
Or you can get away from your devices for just a handful of hours, and take care of your business after landing.
Let’s see if Ben has the balls to report the fight on a BA flight from LHR to AUS. No he won’t. A woman in her 40s asked an older woman to take off her red maga had. When she refused the younger woman punched her lights out.
The blog you are looking for is VFTW
Unless the airline did something really unreasonable as a response, then who gives a shit? Stupid passengers fight over stupid things, all the time.
Why would he do that? It's on live and let's fly, which is appropriate given the increasingly clickbait nature of that site
Go read Gary’s Thot Leader TMZ blog if you want that kind of “news”
He covered it here...
https://onemileatatime.com/news/british-airways-flight-delayed-maga-hat-brawl/
Well he did have the balls so... you must be so happy now?
@ZTravel I too would have preferred a CDG-TPA flight as Delta only offers AMS-TPA but I hope that MCO works out well for them. I've been really impressed with Air France crews, catering and the 350-900 business class configuration. Much better than flying United who still don't have any direct connections from Florida to Europe. I've flown BA a couple of times into MCO and it was the earliest I could get into central Florida...
@ZTravel I too would have preferred a CDG-TPA flight as Delta only offers AMS-TPA but I hope that MCO works out well for them. I've been really impressed with Air France crews, catering and the 350-900 business class configuration. Much better than flying United who still don't have any direct connections from Florida to Europe. I've flown BA a couple of times into MCO and it was the earliest I could get into central Florida as all other flight required a connection.
Why would United have a nonstop from Florida to Europe? They don't fly from any non hub anywhere to Europe- why would Florida be the exception?
To get that revenue. I frankly could care less if United offers a direct flight from Florida to Europe. But Delta does from TPA to AMS. So that's who I'm flying in business. And if I need to go to Orlando it will be BA or now Air France.
UA pulls enough revenue through IAD from FL, their business model does not require ex FL - Europe.
DL flies TPA-AMS due to decent FL-based freq flyers, and the flight is set up overall for x AMS (connections).
@Jordan. You are missing the point that I was making which was that flyers like myself are precisely not willing to book a business class ticket through IAD or EWR to get to Florida because we can fly to our destination from Europe. So United isn't getting my business or that of many other travellers because they are uncompetitive. Who wants to fly longer and get later to a destination? Makes zero sense.
Next time, TPA. Next time.
Interestingly enough, this will be the only year-round route connecting Orlando with another city that has its own Disney Land.
Currently the only other one is a highly seasonal flight to SNA airport on Breeze Airways.
Rather Euro-centric view, as MCO has quite a bit of longhaul service to (deep) South America as well.
That said, this is a resumption for AF. They (strangely) tried to launch the route with a COI 777-300ER last time, and (to no one's surprised) failed to fill such enormous capacity to yield.
Disappointed that TPA didn’t get the route! AF tried Orlando few years ago and it didn’t workout plus AF already flies to MIA and there’s a bright line train connecting to MCO - TPA desperately needed this route!
I think Air France has served Orlando in the past, so if so this is a service resumption.
It makes sense - there arent that many other destinations they dont serve.
Yep they did!