Air France Reviews

To our horror Air France customer service referred us back to fly be who said we had to purchase new tickets or take our complaint with a check in manager manager. Here is where we meet a true gentleman **, after looking into the matter realized we missed our flight due to check in taking too long. He instantly booked us into the next flight to Manchester at no expense. Air France and especially ** are a credit. We certainly will be visiting Disneyland Paris and flying with no other than Air France.

I still tried to contact Air France through several channels (twitter, phone numbers, etc) but it really seemed there was no alternative. I will pass on details with talking to people giving contradictory messages ("your item could have gone to lost luggage service because sometimes it can go there as well...") or just hanging up after me waiting for half an hour to talk to someone... So I had to wait... By doing some researches on google, I found out that I am not the only one to have left an iPad on a plane. Unluckily, passengers of Lufthansa and KLM seemed to have better stories to tell with recovering their lost item, than Air France where the story had most of time an unhappy ending.

By checking on flightradar24.com, which handles a database of all flights and plane registration numbers, I could check that my plane had stayed on ground the whole day after my flight so it was unlikely my iPad stayed in the plane and got rerouted to another destination. Besides, my flight being almost empty, it is very unlikely that another passenger after me could have stolen the device. Unfortunately, after 2 days, I got a very standard e-mail from the anonymous mailbox that they had not my item. I was really disappointed because they really seemed NOT to be caring. I would have hoped for someone to call me and say they had checked with the flight attendants, or the cleansing staff, or did another check on the plane.

Instead, it is a huge bureaucratic, where no one is accountable, and they seem only answer you they haven't found anything. After all, maybe they have and kept it for themselves. The process is so murky that there is no possibility to check or get more information. I even got confirmed by phone that after you do an e-mail complaint for L&F your request does NOT get logged in any database, which means in fact that - may your stuff have been found back after some days - they keep no formal trace of your request to recontact you. It just seems very messy.

I still answered Air France Lost and Found an e-mail (ccing the virtual "VIP" e-mail address for Flying Blue regular customers) asking them to double-check with the flight attendant, whom they could probably identify with their database. I got an automatic answer telling the mailbox was full(!). They seem to be so uncaring that they don't even clean their mailbox. At least, my e-mail still went to the other VIP address but I suspect it is in fact redirected the same mailbox because I didn't get any answer. Trying to contact Air France on twitter, they get very responsive there, but they are not in charge so they can only tell customers that they have redirected request or be sorry for your loss, which at the end is not customer care but just giving an illusion of taking care of stuff.

At the end, forgetting something in a plane can make an individual very angry. It is to the airlines' honour to take care of their passengers and do their best to maximize the chances that the items are found through establishing robust and organized procedures. Instead, all you have there is a mess, that probably allows crooks to profit of the disorganization to enrich themselves. I have no doubt now that my device was taken out by someone from Air France or cleaning company and will probably be sold for very cheap, as it is locked with my iCloud account. Coincidence or not, exactly the same model was put on sales for 80 (without any accessories) the next day by someone from Paris area on the leading eBay-style website, leboncoin.fr, stating it was "locked on iCloud".

The worst in that story is that - would Air France be caring - I am sure there would be a way to identify the responsible. Instead, whatever you tell them, and whoever you speak to, they will keep redirecting you to that anonymous mailbox, who will all but help recovering your stuff. Be twice careful with your stuff on board when you take Air France (especially to Paris CDG): if you forget it, you will most probably never recover it.

When in Montreal I was told my flight was changed and I wanted to take another flight. I was told that I will have to pay $250. In Paris I had the worst customer service and was not able to walk for 2 days when I arrived in Bucharest. Shame on Air France to treat handicapped passengers in this manner. I will be sure to select a better company my next flight.

I had to walk so much from the airplane to the terminal in Paris and I was told I had missed my connection, Air France certainly knew their flight was late so was I but they left without me, how organised… And so to the terminal to find the bus to the hotel, it was very late, no many people around and at one point I got totally lost at airport, I couldn't find anyone speaking English or Portuguese so no help. I was exhausted, hungry, cold until I arrived at hotel for packet of lunch, no dinner.

All caused me a terrible stress, my family went from Bauru to pick me up in S. Paulo and couldn't wait one more day. I had to pay bus and travel 4 and half hrs more to my City because I arrived very very late and had nowhere to go. The money I spent was the difference in money I would have paid for a better company. If I booked direct flight that cost just a bit more I would have escaped from all the nightmare Air France caused me. I don't think I will ever use Air France again, by the way…the food was horrible...

The total refund including suitcase cost, original shopping cost, and costs to replace the items in Lagos came to 873.76GBP. Excess baggage charge 157GBP (was charged 200 euros on my debit card). Today, 20th Feb, 2015 Air France responded saying as goodwill gesture, they will refund 444 GBP. I demand full recompense / refund and extra compensation for inconvenience caused.

On her way back from HAM to CMN, her AF1196 made almost 1 hour of delay again, which made her miss her train and arrive home at 1:30 am. By booking her ticket with AF, I was hoping for better service than with other companies. The food and quality of seats isn't that good either, and especially the flight attendant need better training on how to deal with passengers. And the customer service need to learn to stop taking people for less than nothing and lying to them. I contacted AF via Facebook to complain, and to my surprise, they denied the first 35 min. and pretended it was only 4 min., not to give any compensation for the 6 wasted hours at the airport.

Me and my wife headed back to air france counter again and explained to them passport control request. The lady at air france said, "We can't help you here, and we have encountering this problem because people go to Paris and request refugee." Therefore, she sent me to her superior in air france box at the airport. I explain to the manager the issue and asked for a solution and told him I'm not happy with this matter since I paid in full and I'm getting no service. I was little upset because of the unclear situation.

The manager answered me loudly and unresponsively, saying, "If you don't like the situation, leave your boarding pass at the counter." I headed to the counter, left my boarding pass, came back to the manager asking him for a solution - either I fly or get my money back. At this point the manager got very angry and shouted at me, saying, "Go pick up your money where you paid it at," with disrespect. I answered to him, "This is not the way you answer a customer. You should talk to him with respect." The manager started to talk with me in bad language and swear at me.

Then directly I headed to police station at the airport where I explain the issues to the police officer on duty. Immediately the officer headed to air france manager. After few minutes the officer brought back my bordering passes and took me directly to passport control and cleared me from passport control. I arrive to the gate at the very last minutes before departure.

According to the Lebanese government airport personnel, and according to (IATA-TIMATIC) all passengers must be checked by all Airlines employees before boarding the flight and to check their eligibility entering such country and the travel documentations required to enter such international country such as Lebanon. I was not been advised nor my travel documentation/s has been inspected by the Air France employee young lady before boarding the flight number from Washington to Paris, and from Paris to Beirut. Due to such negligent and recklessness done to me by the Air France employee allowing me to board the flight to Lebanon without stopping me from boarding the flight due to her lack of knowledge education and ignorance.

The Air France Employee failed to check the policy, rules and guidelines of the travel documents and Visa requirement/s and boarded me the flight to cause me denial of entry and deportation from Lebanon back to the U.S. Nonetheless, and while I'm in hold by the Lebanese Airport Officials, a senior immigration officer made a written report and issued a "Fine" of $2,000 U.S. Dollars and handed in front of me to the Air France representative in Beirut, Lebanon Airport for failing to inspect passengers of Visa requirement, such in my case. Damages:

7). I incurred unnecessary fees and charges.

Air France refused to take responsibility and to act professional by correcting this unfortunate bad experience and re-issue me a round trip tickets from my hometown in the U.S. to my choice of destination overseas for my another re-planned trip for the second time, while having my proper Visa to the specific country on hands, and to reimburses me all the fees, charges I endured from this trip!!!

To the contrary, Air France arrogant supervisors and/or representatives and after going back and forwards via emails, threatened me indirectly to sue me for their paid fines to the Lebanese Government for MY lack of informations (ME THE PASSENGER) and MY duty to investigates the necessary Visa's requirements!!!

The only "Generous courtesy" they have done is by issuing me 9000 Air France Flying Blue Miles which I could not do anything with it! Just like throwing a little bone to a dog on the street!!! This Air Line is worst than any third world county airline/s! Don't be fooled by the name "Air France." Arrogant employees, arrogant supervisors, arrogant company and horrible service!!!

I am flying from Los Angeles to Paris Tomorrow and I purchased Seat Plus a month ago for me and my wife. Paid $90 per seat to make sure I am seated on the extended leg room seat with my wife. Today during checking in, I discovered that my seats are changed and we are not even seated next to each other. Even though I have the receipt and I have printed confirmation with the Seats plus that I bought a month ago. I called Air France and the supervisor confirmed that it is Air France Employee error and they sold the seats to other people yesterday and she said there is nothing she can do. SHE REFUSED TO TRANSFER ME TO A MANAGER and she insisted that there is nothing she can do and my seats are sold. She REFUSED TO UPGRADE ME knowing that there are seats available on Premium Economy.

I called 3 times, I kept getting her and if don't get her, someone in the same call Center would transfer me to her. Horrible attitude and would not help me what so ever knowing that SHE ADMITTED 5 TIMES that it is AIR FRANCE ERROR. She refused to find me compatible seats like the one I paid for and she refused to upgrade me and she even blocked my online check in. HORRIBLE. I work for a very large international Engineering firm and I explained that this will affect the relationship my company have with Air France and she Still DID NOT CARE. Will NEVER FLY WITH AIR FRANCE again and WILL make SURE MY COMPANY WILL NOT USE AIR FRANCE AGAIN.

Finally a supervisor let me in just before takeoff! When I get back home I call flying blue for crediting my miles for the unused portion (20,000) and a reimbursement of my tax Euro 193 for the return ticket. After 3 calls I finally get my miles but I was told I used a promo ticket so they cannot reimburse the tax. I get mad and finally get Euro 66.33 - After complaining they gave me another 10,000 miles but explained that some taxes cannot be reimbursed because they are based on the return trip! So cheap! I did not ask to reimburse my air ticket and train, I just wanted a fair treatment and the total refund of taxes for the one way!!!

Finally after a month I was contacted and was told I will only be reimbursed 37 pounds and was laughed at when I told them about how much inconvenience they had caused me. After this conversation I assumed I would be reimbursed. I STILL HAVE NOT RECEIVED THAT MONEY!!!!!! I have sent continuous tweets to Air France and they have responded and said they would contact me by the end of the day.... still nothing has been done! This is the worst experience I have ever had with an organization. It's disturbingly pathetic!!!!!!! DON'T FLY AIRFRANCE!!!!

Our return flight has gotten very bad. Once AF pilot strike announced I was unsuccessful to get any answers from the airline regarding our travel. If Air France helped me at the beginning of the strike, there would be less stress, aggravation and desperation to deal with. I called on 9/15th when strike began looking into re-booking with another airline, changing dates and etc, asking what can be done and was told not to worry as by 9/21st (date of my travel) it all would blow over. On 9/17th called again only to find out there are no flights any longer available to me at that moment.

We felt abused and dismissed by the airline! It was our wedding anniversary celebratory vacation and they have completely ruined it for us. I spent 9/17th, 9/18th, 9/19th & 9/20th on the phone averaging about 20 hours instead of enjoying vacation I paid a lot of money for. We were offered no information, no options, no compensation and no apologies! We were booked in business class seats: while it is comfortable and better customer service way to travel, main reason I go for this cabin is health. I am a large person with many health issues: vertigo, high blood pressure, joint pain issues, migraines and anxieties. Wider and longer seats allow me to fly comfortably without health consequences. I do not have much money and do have to save for it.

Since there were no instruction from AF and we didn't know what else to do, we showed up at the airport on the day of departure, only then to find out that AF has rescheduled us from direct, non-stop flight in business class to an economy class flight with a stop, allowing only 45 min to change the plane, arriving to a different airport originally scheduled for, costing us more money to get home. When I asked about another possibilities, was told there is nothing else they could do. AF website has information which states in case of flight cancellation they are to provide another flight with comparable class arrangements or situate us in the hotel with monetary compensation until another flight becomes available. I did bring that up at the counter and was told basically: take it or leave it! There is NOTHING else can be done for us. They didn't even compensated us the difference between business and economy class tickets!

Our seats were at the end of the plane which has the worst turbulence: my vertigo started to act out and it was horrible! I developed a very intense migraine and had to take strong meds to deal with that. I had swollen legs that were hurting. I could not breathe becoming more and more anxious as I was squeezed into a tiny seat with no room to turn. It was a miserable experience and we believe AF has to compensate us for endangering our health, ruining our vacation and extra money we wasted. There were so many people in a similar situation! How is it possible that AF let this situation going so far with no concern for passengers who keeps them in business!

I and my son travel at least 3 times a year from Paris to Washington DC and my plan was to use Air France as I am a loyal customer. However, after this incident and very poor customer service received when I attempted to rectify the situation by calling Air France has forced me to change from a loyal customer. This is very unfortunate because I really do love Air France but from now on, I will have to use another airline for my annual 6 plane tickets to the United States. It is sad that all of this could have been resolved with a simple change of the extra bag from one leg of my next trip to the returning portion.

My luggage came 2 days later with missing items in my bag, and expensive food items that got perished. Air France India refused to even listen to my complaint of compensation, and their representatives, Ruhi and Ruchi ** misbehaved with me, and even stopped replying to my email complaints. I have already blacklisted this airline in my entire organization, and request the professionals in my network to kindly NOT use the services of Air France in future. This is one airline that first harasses their passengers, and is totally nonchalant about the plight of these passengers later on.

Air France flight operated by Middle East (AF569) was more 20 minutes late. In CDG airport customer support of Air France did not do their best to compensate for the delay they give the last flight with Alitalia to Rome and the flight was 30 minutes late. (They had many Air France flights and Alitalia flights much earlier than the choice they give me). For all of the above reasons my trip to Rome was delayed for no reason (strike, bad weather) more than 8 hours in the airport so instead of arriving at 14:40 I arrived about 23:00 which caused me in addition to the hard time I experienced in the airport, to miss the transportation which is supposed to take me and it cost me more than 130 Euros to take a taxi from Fiumicino Airport to Frascati City in about midnight and to arrive exhausted and to miss my meeting in the afternoon that day.

I think with all the above nothing can compensate my suffering during this flight to Rome which is supposed to take 6 hours instead it took me more than 14 hours. N.B. : Suppose I am behind my delay would not they cancel my ticket or charge me for any change?

They don't care about Americans only accommodating to the French. I saw them giving out blankets and hotel accommodations to some French speaking people but they didn't do A THING for us. Due to this, I spent over $1000 dollars out of my pocket and they are still not refunding the airfare or the checked baggage fees. I intend to pursue my complaint further. AIR FRANCE IS TERRIBLE. NEVER EVEN TAKING DELTA BC I'M STAYING AWAY FROM EVERY COMPANY THAT'S ASSOCIATED WITH THEM.

I went to Air France desk and I explain the problem. The lady served me was very kind and helpful. She said I have a seat tomorrow morning at 6.40 am. She said, "You don't have to pay for the airport tax but you must pay flight ticket." I said how much, she said around 70. I said I have only 140euros she said, "Ok let me see what I can do" and she was very helpful. I paid my ticket and I waited all the night at the airport. Very tired my head was so heavy. I suffer anemia so that make me a bit weak. I went to check in. I gave my passport and my boarding ticket and I showed him my small suit case I have always used as a hand luggage I never had any problem. I use it with KLM, with Air France, Qatar Airways, and many other airlines, even with Ryan Air never I had any problem.

The person at check in asked me to use the luggage measuring basket, I don't know how we call it. It small but the wheel are 2" wider no more than 6 kilos. While I was trying to fitted into this thing I was tired and this guy from KLM was watching trying to fitted in he was helping at the queue and helping people to print their boarding take it, he said to me, "No you can't board with this suitcase. You have to pay £25 for 2" extract." I have to pay 25. I said, "Why?" I was shocked. It was obvious he wanted to give hard time and made my life a hell. He was going on and trying to convince me that he was right. He even went inside of the thing to prove to people that I was a stupid person. And that is against health and safety jumping inside of the thing. If he did false movement he could fall over, injured himself and injured passenger. I did said nothing then he kept trying to make his point.

I said to him, "I am talking to you. I am talking to the person who do checking." What he did, he took my boarding ticket and tear off. He said, "She is aggressive, she is it not going" and another woman also helping in the queue said, "You are very aggressive. You are not flying." Imagine the humiliation, the embarrassment. You feel powerless. I took my luggage and I was leaving the airport because I was exhausted. After reflection I said no this people can't get away with it. There is justice. I am law student and I have to do something, not only for me but for everyone that suffer this unfair treatment. I went back and I went to Air France desk asking to get refund for my ticket. The lady was trying to help me, she is French. We were talking in French.

I said, "They don't let board. Can have my money back?" She said, "I can give you the airport taxes," and here this woman coming after me and she stopped from helping and ask her to deal with other passenger and she treated like a dog. I went after and I asked to write on my ticket what has happened and I am stopped from traveling then I can have evidence. She wrote because I was aggressive, I said, "Are you sure?" She said yes and that what she wrote on the ticket. Then she said, "If you don't leave I call the police." I said, "A very good idea like that I can have a full report from the police and I can't have a better evidence." I waited for the police to come but not police, a young woman nice and polite from the airport security asked what happened.

When I show her the suitcase, she was surprised she said, "Is that the luggage?" I said yes. And then she went to talk to this KLM woman and she tell her, "If she want to travel she need to pay new ticket and she can travel in next flight." Something smell fishy. I am making a complaint and if I don't have remedy I will take Air France to the high court of England. please support me. This behavior should stop. They are taking advantage of people because they are tired or they want just to travel because they have commitment. Please support me. I will dispute in the court. They are abusing their power. Sorry for any spelling mistakes. I am tired and upset. I will keep informed of what are the steps I will take and feedback. Thank you for giving the opportunity to share with you my story.

Because I am a cancer patient under treatment, I am highly susceptible to colds, etc. So I brought my own surgical mask to wear. Had to wear it the entire flight. Took it off to hurriedly eat. Could not sleep or read due to passenger's constant coughing, and I did not want to recline my seat back as it would bring me closer to her. We complained several more times to flight attendant -- who had asked us not to speak to the passenger in 15 A) -- but all she could say was that she would file a report. We also spoke with the Purser. There may not have been empty seats in Premium Economy, but there were open seats in Business and First-class sections, and we could have been moved to them. Passenger continued to cough non-stop for nearly 11 hours, duration of the flight.

I wrote to Air France on May 28, 2013 and requested a refund of the $910. Air France rejected this claim. I then contacted Michael **, of the Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) Travel Agency, through which we booked our trip (800-241-1404). For several months, Mr. ** said he tried to get his contact at Air France to accept my claim. He was not successful. Air France also rejected our request that, in lieu of a cash refund, they provide us with a travel voucher for $910 with an expiration date of one year. That, too, was rejected. At one point, we had email correspondence with Mary **, Coordinator, Corporate Customer Care, Delta Airlines. Ms. ** said Delta Air Lines represents Air France and KLM Dutch Airlines in North America. She offered us two $50 gift certificates as compensation. We declined. Ms. **'s correspondence referenced case #9085465.

I rushed through the security check, etc., and finally arrived at the departure gate, found Air France ground staff and told her the situation. She could only tell me the flight was overbooked and I had to wait for everyone to go into the plane before she could tell me if I could get the seat. I waited and waited. In the end, she told me there was no seat available. It was quite a drama. After an hour of waiting, I was lucky to get a seat because one of the passenger's friend was also on standby, but she was after me so she couldn't get the seat either. So her friend decided to give up her seat to me in order to be with her friend and take the next flight, which is scheduled the next morning.

It's not just that. I was given a better seat in the front row (thanks to the passenger who gave up the seat to me). However, when I entered the plane, the flight stewardess told me my seat was taken by another passenger and asked me to move to the last row - I was squeezed in the middle between 2 big guys. Throughout the almost 3-hour flight, I was very uncomfortable. The other passenger who took my original seat was a perfectly tall young man. I couldn't understand why the air crew didn't get my seat back (it's merely a simple request, all she had to do is to ask!) and expect me to give up MY SEAT AND MY RIGHTS.

The truth is, I bought the premium priority seat, not just the normal economy. That means I paid extra only to receive such a treatment as punishment. It's not reasonable, and I don't just want to let go. I think they can't treat customers like this - they showed no respect to their customers! If they are overbooked, they should at least have the courtesy to tell you in advance, not 30 minutes before departure and expect the customers to find out by themselves and suffer. If the seat is taken, at least they should ask the other passenger that it's not their seat. I understand people sometimes have special needs, etc. - maybe that's why that young man took my seat, but you have to ask and at least find out why my seat was taken, instead of just asking me to give up my seat and take the last row.

I would really appreciate it if I could at least go through the complaint process and get the money back. I do not want to pay extra for this awful experience.

I had no working mobile phone with me to contact my husband to tell him I could not return there. I had only my passport, boarding pass and 2 dogs on leashes. I went to the Customer Care center in the terminal where our flight to Istanbul would board. I was there 1 hour prior to the flight departure. There was no AF employee at the Customer Service center. Finally, I found an AF technician who called someone to come to help me. No one came. 30 minutes before flight departure, 2 women arrived to start the boarding. I explained the problem and asked them to call over to the transit area to tell my husband to come. They refused.

10 minutes before boarding, 2 more AF employees arrived and were just chatting with each other. I again explained the problem and told them exactly where my husband was sitting, still waiting for me and by now very alarmed. They needed to make only 1 phone call to ask the AF employee standing 3 meters in front of him to tell him to come to the boarding gate. They refused to make this call.

Our flight left and I remained alone with my dogs and the two women who had refused to help. Finally, one of them decided this was serious and she made the call that I had asked for 50 minutes earlier. My husband was alerted and came immediately. However, the flight had left and AF said we must both pay a penalty and buy new tickets. Total was 900 Euros. This could have been avoided with 1 simple phone call or one person who would escort me back to where my husband was.

Good-bye, Air France. We will never fly with you again.

I couldn't face going as two years ago, Air France delayed our 8 suitcases of luggage by 11 days of our 13-day stay in Cuba. It was really cold and we had no warm clothing. We had no pajamas and had to sleep fully clothed in our only clothes we had for 3 nights. It is not easy to buy suitable clothing in Cuba. One case with a water pump, hose, pipes, etc. for my husband's aunt's well was never returned to us. At the time she was over 80 with a broken arm in plaster and had no running water to her house. Relatives and neighbors still get her water using a rope and bucket. We had spent ages researching and buying all the correct parts and carefully packaging them up.

At the airport, I told the lady at the desk it was a "special" item and she dismissed this as unimportant and sent it on with the other luggage. After 6 cases were labelled and loaded, she said she couldn't put the last two cases on as my husband's ticket was not okay and he might not be flying. We were asked to stand aside whilst they dealt with others boarding. After about 20 minutes of discussion, it was decided he could get on as the ticket was in fact okay. The last two cases were, in fact, mine but were labelled as my husband's. I was assured that this would be no problem as we were all traveling together, and as the others were on their way to the plane, they couldn't be recalled and relabeled.

It took a lot of detailed, time consuming correspondence, taking over a year before I got any compensation. Even some months after I asked for compensation, I had a phone call from a lady at Air France asking me if we had a good holiday after the confusion over the tickets. I explained the above and that we did not have a good time. She knew nothing about this. Air France were very unhelpful. It is so hard to contact them. They won't give out phone numbers and have non-returnable emails. I got some compensation from my holiday insurance (through the co-op bank have a family insurance but they deducted GBP50 excess for every person, GBP150 altogether).

Air France then paid some more for what the holiday insurance would not pay for. However, no one would pay the GBP48 extra night's stay in the hotel apartments or for all our journeys to the airport at GBP35 a trip. We also had to hire a car to get to Santa Clara (about 5 hours drive away) where my husband's family lives as we could no longer get the transport provided to us by his family. After 11 days, 7 pieces of baggage arrived in Havana. One was missing and one was ripped open and items were missing.

However, Air France wouldn't deliver our luggage to Santa Clara where we were staying. My husband and son drove back to Havana to get it but the Airport Authorities wouldn't give my husband my cases because he is still classed as Cuban, despite having lived in Britain for over 10 years and he has had a British passport for 7 years. He had all the correct documentation with him including our marriage certificate, PIR forms from Air France, etc. In fact, as Air France had mixed up labeling our baggage in Manchester, he was given my cases and as a Cuban, he had to pay import taxes on these. My sister, my daughter and I had to go to travel to Havana airport the next day to collect ours (two of which were actually my husband's but labeled as mine). This was quite costly.

When we got back to Manchester, I noticed dozens of cases lying around the baggage collection labelled the 19th December for some foreign destination which had obviously not been sent or had been sent to the wrong place and returned. So, many other people did not have a good holiday either. The final blow was when our house insurance rocketed up to GBP1080 because our holiday insurance let the house insurance people know we had made a claim as our house insurance had the same underwriter and that goes on my house insurance as a claim. Needless to say, I have gone elsewhere for insurance this year. We only received about GBP500 altogether which nowhere near covered the loss and inconvenience.

Now (December 27th, 2012), my husband is with his parents and again without the medicine he was taking for his mum and the Christmas presents we had bought for the family. These are not luxury items but essential things like night dresses, cardigans, underwear, a blanket, etc. It was very stressful two years ago and here he is going through it all again. Me too. I never want to fly Air France again.

My sister who was with us in 2010 made a claim to Air France for her delayed luggage and expense of buying clothes. She has received nothing at all from them. They did ask for her bank details over a year ago but paid nothing into it. At one time, they mixed up our files as we have the same surname.

I lost expensive gifts from my luggage in a first class AF intercontinental flight. The theft was at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. Unbelievable! Incidentally, the night before, a Saudi CEO warned me to watch out for my briefcase in first class. In particular, he described a certain flight attendant as his briefcase was found in the coach section (can you believe it?) after he told the pilot that no one should leave the plane. He found out later that his iPhone was stolen. On another trip, I was in Paris only for a two-hour meeting with a bank. Sure enough AF lost my luggage, leaving me without my business attire. I had to scramble to buy a complete business attire.

Here is where my frustration reached its peak. Later on, I approached him nicely to ask him for his name. He refused and told me, "Are you after me to lose my job? In order for me to give you my name, you need to provide me with your name." I replied, "No Sir, since you threatened to arrest me because I'm Haitian-American, I will not provide you with such information but I will file a formal complaint to Air France."

Unfortunately, I was not able to read his badge because he had turned it backward. When I asked his co-workers, they didn't want to reveal his name to me and when I asked to speak to the supervisor, he came for a short while and was very busy to listen to my complaint. He asked me to wait for him because he had other matters prior to my complaint that he was working on, and never had the chance to come back to me until I boarded the plane. At this time, my best elucidation is to file a formal complaint with Air France. My flight number was AF 3988. He was the gentleman who did the last check on the passport and the boarding pass before I entered the gate.

He was very unprofessional and disrespectful to me. Surely you are not aware of the gaffes and subsequent rude behavior that I was subjected to, toxic. I believe Air France needs to take full responsibility for the inconvenience I suffered due to the discrimination, threat and the non-professionalism that occurred among this particular staff. By the way, I just came from my father's funeral and I really didn't need that stress. Please investigate this matter at your earliest convenience, and get back to me as soon as possible with an explanation and appropriate compensation.

Air France informed us that they can't give hotel stay since they could not arrange visa from immigration. They could not provide a proper lounge facility as we are economy class. We were given 3 food vouchers, which we found totally inadequate as at the counters, more things we wanted were to be paid for as additional. No facility given to us to contact by phone or emails. After repeated asking the counter for over 3 hours, finally at 11:00PM, they got blankets to sleep on the reclining lounge chairs (no toilet kits for a face wash, shave or toothbrush provided). We had an uneasy night. We went to terminal K mentioned on the boarding pass and saw that there were no passengers there. No notice on display of where the flight was to be boarded from.

About 30 minutes before departure time, other similar passengers informed that the terminal was changed to M-gate 45. We rushed and managed to get on board. We lost a full day of our already tight, scheduled holiday. We want a proper apology and a compensation for the delay and the inadequate facility provided by Air France/Delta. I contacted Delta on Aug. 21, 2012 and again on Sept. 2, 2012, and their staff in Dubai called up on Sept. 3, 2012 and asked me to lodge a complaint at the Air France website.

I am livid! I bought my tickets from Delta, not Air France. It is their duty to chase Air France as they have a codeshare and thereby share responsibility. I want to also add that on the return flight from USA, the codeshare was with KLM and we had a very comfortable return flight. Delta ought to do their follow up with Air France on my behalf!

Customers should get paid for all the work we have to do to get to our gates on time. I was in the airport by 7:30am and I barely made it to the gate at 10:20am. To top it all, the rude man working on booth 10 wanted me to take a flight back to Houston that landed at 5am, when I had to be back at work at 7am. I bought a direct flight. No one is doing me a favor if I am paying for a service. If I had to rate the service, it would be in the negative scale. Please learn how to deal with overbooking, informing customers of terminal changes, and orienting customers to the right area. Total disrespect to customer's time.

Now I am leery of even trusting our other flights. My question is "if we had cancelled our flights, we would not have been able to get a refund, but if they cancel (without notification) and we missed our entire trip, would we have been reimbursed?" For upsetting our family, I think they should make us some type of compensation or even upgraded seats. Also, I tried to put this on a complaint to Air France, but their site just gives you the runaround and could never actually make a complaint.

It is the 24 of March and still do not have my bags with all my clothes and other very important belongings. Not only AF ruined my trip but also ruined other personal function for me with their negligence and carelessness about the consumer needs. This is the last time I am flying AF. I will make sure to tell all of my friends about the horrible experience. I am requesting complete refund to my ticket. Imagine yourself stranded in hotel with no clothing or underwear for 4 days.

No paperwork was filled out then your employee said since my name was on the board, there was no need to do this. I haven't received my luggage yet, nor is there any contact from your company. My experience with your company's inability to manage, is the worst nightmare anyone should have to endure. I will never book another trip with your airline. I will also report this to AmEx who books the trips for our corporation.

I was of the understanding that I would be charged $149.00 on top on the vouchers; however, when I received my bank statement, it showed that I had been charged $350.00, including two charges for my son's ticket. This is where I really got angry. I waited for 20 minutes before I could talk to someone and 30 minutes before any rectification. After a booking confirmation was sent by Salwan, who was very helpful, I was able to check the bookings and saw there was the extra booking payment made by Air France of $101.18. I had to call back the AF office to talk to someone and explain what I had discovered. This is not acceptable. The level of stress trying to get this sorted has been too much and I have not even left the country yet. If I had any idea those vouchers would cause so much headache, I would have claimed via my insurance for the Delta accident. I opted for the "stress free" option which had caused me more stress in the end. Hopefully, they will see the error and credit me back the over-charged amount.

As the main carrier on all flights, except Russia and Turkey, we have chosen Air France. In this case, it came from the fact that it's a large company and a long-standing company. However, I have one of the flights, or more precisely, on the flight from Istanbul to Paris, there was trouble. I forgot in the plane a little bag with an iPad and an external HDD, which I have, in addition to entertainment, very important information. I remembered about the loss almost immediately after leaving the plane, standing on the station platform waiting for a train to Paris.

I had a loyalty to the airline. I decided not to return, because he was tired (My wife and I traveled with a young son.). I decided that the bag must be found. I left it in the seat pocket. This is confirmed by my wife, who remembers, as I shoved the bag back. The next day, I went to the airport and quickly found the department in charge of the luggage and everything connected with it. However, to my surprise, I was told that nothing like it in an airplane was found. Dali's email address and told to write there. I wrote a letter, put the image of the bag (My friend's is exactly the same.) and scans of boarding passes, and described the whole situation. In response, I received the following:

We duly received your mail concerning the lost item, and we will do our utmost to investigate. However, if you do not receive any reply from us within 8 days, the tracing has to be considered as negative. Please do note that Air France is not liable in case of lost, partial reconstitution, or deterioration of your property. (end of message)

I understand that this is a standard message, which is created by a robot, and I wrote the following letter in response:

Good day! I have received, but I'm not satisfied with your answer. I understand that there are rules, but still I insist on a thorough investigation. You are a large and respectable company, so you have to take into account the different situations and solve problems that arise from your customers. I have four witnesses who can confirm the incident. You need a thorough examination of zvodit cabin after the arrival of the aircraft, and if so, then you have a bag. If not, then it is a misappropriation of another's property by third parties, which is a crime committed on board the vessel. I hope the investigation will be thorough and the guilty will be punished as well as the missing item will be refunded. I await your reply with impatience.

But in response, I received the same message as before. It seemed to me that nobody reads and everybody does not care about me. I re-visited the airport on the way back, but then again, I did not get a clear answer. I'm not a very good speaker of English, and it was difficult to explain to them all. And on the official website of Air France in Facebook, I cannot post but just comment.

I will refer to all via Twitter, and I will write letters to the authorities in France. I think it's a dismissive attitude toward me as a customer and a violation of safety standards (no interior inspection), and perhaps, intentional embezzlement.

I personally ordered a wheel chair for my mother-in-law who is over 60 and cannot speak French or English and cannot walk a long distance. What we got is my mother-in-law in Paris not known what to do and no one cared about helping her. When I called them, they said that it’s true that we ordered a wheel chair but this is not a guarantee service. Initially, the agent of course made it like Air France is the only company that will provide this kind of service and confirmed the order for us. Before that they made a mistake with my ticket, my wife and my daughter. They put my new born in a different flight (wow very smart).

We had to stay in Paris for 5 more hours and I have to go outside to buy another ticket and more and more. In addition, because I am from North Africa, I am only allowed to carry one bag. My promise to myself is to never fly Air France and make sure I will tell my story to everyone I know and write in every place about what they did to me.

When I asked them back again, they said they already called. Then a guy came with chair and surprisingly, that wheelchair was not for us! It was for a guy who just walked in! This is an obvious discrimination based on skin color. We pay the same money. Why do other passengers can get a service but we can't? Also, how come Air France doesn't have any French speakers to escort passengers in need? That's all. I'm really really mad now.

I waited, me and my family, for 2 to 3 hours with no bottle of water, no food, and no assistance (not even a place where my wife can change the baby diapers). Finally, the decision came that the French Police has refused my Visa. Why? “No justification Monsieur”, that was their answer given in such rude & arrogant way that I thanked God I had contained my nerves then. Faced with this new situation, they said that my wife and baby would go to the budget airport hotel to rest till the next flight to Morocco. The next day, 22 January 2012, and I should spend the night at the airport. Knowing, that my wife explained to me later how terrible, dirty, and noisy this budget hotel was for a mother and her 7 months child to sleep and rest in. Always without food, water, and any assistance, they gave me a piece of paper saying that I’ll have to go find a lounge where I am supposed to spend the night in. I literally had to ask somebody for guidance every 100 meters or so, because the lounge was in another terminal, while I was at terminal F. (Nobody explained to me that I had to take the Train to reach this famous lounge) knowing that I do speak French as well.

I had made it to the Air France service desk where I am supposed to go this Lounge, to find out that I had to wait there for extra 2 to 3 hours, till the man in charge comes and take me into it. Well, always, without food, water, and assistance for more than 7 hours since I landed in Paris, finally the man in charge came, and he drove me to this lounge that later seemed like a detention center to me, where two chairs where connected together to make a 1.2 meter kind of bed topped by an AF Towel that was supposed to be my Blanket. After one hour there, completely shocked, hungry, tired, and humiliated, finally somebody showed up with some canned meat derivatives processed food that I could not eat first because I was vegetarian, second because it was so mean the way he put it on table like. Anyway, I hope I did not sound angry nor emotional reciting my story, though, I can’t help it but to express my regret and frustration that I have forced my company to fly me Air France, while I could have flew via Emirates or Qatar Airways, which is cheaper, more convenient, more human, and most of all, preserving my family dignity.

Plus, I do understand that The French Police has the rights to issue a visa on airport for whom they may see worth it (though I believe they mostly do it based on looking at the passport). But, The Tragedy and drama I had lived in CDG with my family was caused by Air France AF 267 delay by one hour forcing us to miss the connecting flight to Casablanca. Therefore, the AF personnel should have been much more human in dealing with a family of a husband, wife, a 7-month-old baby, assisting them with basic human rights: food, bottled water (not white plastic little instant coffee water) and guidance to place where we can change the baby diapers for instance. I hope my message was clear. My final wish is the hope I can get a response to this appeal. Otherwise, I strongly recommend running away whenever you see Air France uniform personnel. Thank You.

I was refused check in for my flight, and not only me but there were few more passengers who were supposed to take that flight. Because of mismanagement of the queue at the airport by Air France staff many passengers were left behind including me. There was no one from the airline to call passengers flying earlier to come forward. There’s only one queue for all passengers. Due to this mismanagement by the airline staff I missed my flight for which I want to take Air France to court.

When she asked again when is the next flight to Sofia, the person who was laughing came out from the boot and kicked her luggage on the ground! Then, she left crying and went to another information boot. She had more help there. That person was able to find a connecting flight, Paris-Prague-Sofia. My mother stayed at the airport for hours crying, alone. She could not speak the language because Air France did not do their job and an information clerk was an animal!

I fly a lot to Europe and I will never fly with Air France again. Her ticket was $1,220 - and she was handled as a low class human. Not even that! I will make sure even if this issue is resolved, I will let everyone know how Air France cares for their passengers! My name is Venci and I could be reached at **. I insist on apology to my mother and will wait for a phone call! Thank you! "

This is what I sent to Air France. I also called their hotline. After I told them what happened, they wanted to give my mother a $150 credit for future flight, like she will ever, ever fly with them. I declined it! I am waiting on an apology – let’s see if I will get one!

Then comes the worst. As already the flight was late, when we were boarding the plane, there was a chaos; the flight attendants and crew were shouting and banning many to enter with their carry on items as there was no space. I as many others, had only one bag with valuable stuff that I would never put with the luggage but the crew insisted not to let any enter with their bags and forced them rudely to do so. All others before us went in with more than one piece with variant sizes and for many like me, we were forced to go back and check our pieces. All the crew were blaming the passengers that they are imposing further delay. I am like many others concerned. There was a clear disorganization and mismanagement.

For me this is not riight and not the fault of anyone other than Air France! All airlines, including Air France, allow each passenger a carry on to be taken to board in plane. And people including myself used to do that and it is considered a given and not a competitive advantage. Even new operating airlines have that. And for me, I got the surprise and rude attitude from the crew and to force us leave the plane and check the pieces in the luggage. Ideally and it happened, that with the initial check in the counter, they ask about the number of pieces and check their sizes. It never happened to get at that point where there is no time to manage to take the valuables.

Also, the crew never showed any courtesy in the dealing and did not apologize or sympathize with the passengers. This is unacceptable reaction from such well-know and established organization. Again, I will never fly Air France.

I tried from 10 AM until 6 PM intervals of 15-20 minutes and no answer. I know, unfortunately Romania is not much better than Somalia in the sense of customer service, but for the airline it could cause a considerable loss in the long run. Not to mention that disappointed customers might avoid using the airline later on. After all, I had to make some changes by using overseas customer services which was satisfactory except for the 60 minutes it took to stay on the phone (the cost, I do not know yet).

Thank you.

This clerk was rude and insulting and went to the extent of refusing to check me in. I waited for several minutes but she walked out from her desk to talk to another friend. She was simply trying to insult me and show off her importance. I was amazed by the cheek of this lady. I had to move to another counter for the check-in. Later I spoke to a kind looking Indian lady (also an AF employee at CDG for several years) about her behavior. Probably you could train your staff better in etiquette and professional good manners.

When I asked for tickets refund. I was asked to contact office in Poland because I bought the tickets on Polish Air France web page using credit card /not issued in Poland. Office in Poland is closed on weekends and there is no 24 hours phone service.

Overall, our experience with Air France customer service is absolutely bad. Also, please be aware that when you receive e-mail flight confirmation from Air France, you should check the "manage the booking" as it happened to us twice, the flights were cancelled or changed when, and at the same exact time, e-mail itinerary confirmed no-change with original, paid booking.

I was seated on the first row of the Business Class. I went to the restroom after an hour of the flight, which was already night time so it was dark, not realizing that this restroom was only for first class passengers.

I was inside when suddenly I heard a hard knock at my door. I thought it was just another passenger who was checking if the restroom was occupied. Then after a few seconds, another hard knock. I opened and I found myself being shouted at by the male steward. He was short and had light hair. It looks like he was the steward for the first class section. He was very condescending in asking me if I spoke English. Then he was so mad to tell me in a loud, shouting voice that this restroom is only for first class passengers.

Couldn't he have said it more politely, or better still, couldn't he have just waited for me to finish with the restroom and waited for me to go out and tell me politely? He was very rude. He hurriedly escorted me out and closed the curtains behind me. Don't you teach your staff how to handle clients who make mistakes? Don't you tell them to be polite in any case? I am so disheartened because I am such a loyal client of KLM-Air France all these years. I am a gold (or maybe platinum now) level Flying Blue member.

I now have lost my appetite for KLM-Air France because there had been many other instances that the staff had not been really that nice, but can be forgivable. But this one was the worst I have ever had, not only in KLM-Air France flights, but amongst all the other airlines. I have not encountered such rude flight attendant like this man.

Next day, the same flight was delayed by 3 hours. We paid a higher airfare thinking that we can arrive faster but ended up wasting 36 hours in Paris. It was strange that the crew was reluctant to speak in English.

In addition, the Air France flight was very uncomfortable with small seats and hardly any leg room. Our advice is not to fly with Air France nor take any connecting flights from Paris.

My parents planned to come from NY (JFK ) to Bangalore Via Air France. They were travelling with Travelling Reference Y6XKEV. Travel was split into NYK to Paris and Paris to Bangalore. Due to the delay of flight from NY to Bangalore, they missed the Paris to Bangalore flight. And this is the first inconvenience from Air France. Air France arranged the flights from France to Dubai to Bangalore. The flight from Dubai to Bangalore was arranged by Emirates.

They landed in Dubai well. But From Dubai, when they planned to carry Emirates to Bangalore, they saw a letter from Air France having 2 passengers and 1 baggage. But my parents had 4 baggage. So Emirates did not allow them to board. And they had to wait for 24 hours for Air France office in Dubai Airport to open. Nobody there tried to help the elderly people.

Then, we from India tried get help from local Air France. We need to wait for 4 hours for an answer. Finally, we need to arrange a flight from Dubai to Bangalore.

This is a huge mess from Air France. This is the worst international airline. To ** with Air France. You will lose customer, if you continue to do something like this.

The reason I called was to pay change fee of a return portion of a ticket. Contrary to what I was told when making the change, Maria indicated that the ticket has no value since I didn't pay the change fee immediately when the change was made. Then I was put on hold for 45 whole minutes, waiting to speak to a supervisor, and then I was informed that I will be put through a customer service representative to make changes as an "exception". At that point, I asked to speak to the supervisor as I know no exception was required. I was very frustrated after the 40 plus minutes wait. Maria stated that I have to call a different number, and she could not ask a supervisor to call me. The trend was obvious - keep him on the line long enough, hoping he'll hang up. That's what it seemed like.

I called the ** number and asked to speak to a supervisor about the incident. I was transferred to Tom who asked about the detail of the ticket and not the incident, and after another 40 minutes (call started at 9:30 and finally he came back with a response/conclusion at 10:11 am), I was told that all is cleared and the 30 dollar admin fee will be waived, and I have to pay 100 dollars. At which point, I stated that this is acceptable. If I am going to be offered a discount/compensation for the bad experience, a 30 dollar is not going to do it, and I would rather pay the 130 in full as I don't accept his offer. He then asked, "Are you bargaining with me" which led me to state that I was not and that the bad experience and the offer made to ensure my satisfaction compels me not to travel Air France again. Then tom stated, "Why should I give you a better discount since you won't travel AF again?" I made it clear that such a statement should never be made to a client, an angry client who has been on the phone for 1.5 hours. I was then insulted. "You don't respect people," I was told, and I was hung up on - right there and then by your supervisor, Tom.

To make a mistake is only human, but to try to cover it and offer no apology is only immature and uncivilized. To insult a client is unprecedented, not in Canada or anywhere else. No one should be subjected to such an experience.

The above has been raised to Air France Flying online customer service flying blue team. To my surprise, I received a response, Claim number Y/R: ** and O/R: **, stating that they don't deal with such issues, rather, they will forward to the office the ticket was purchased from. I then receive an email, stating what seemed like a short apology and that the issue will be looked into, claim number **.

There has been no word for almost a year now.

Canadian folks, please ensure to file your experience(s) in Canada with BBB.

I can understand that the fare I bought was non-refundable but any other airline would get me on a later flight that has space, or at least put me on standby. Maybe I would have to pay an extra fee, but at least they would try to help. Air France completely washed their hands of me and left me stranded and broke in the airport, unable to get home.

Attempts to talk to the staff at the airport, to call the office in Europe and in the U.S., the customer complaint lines, online forms, etc… were met with rude, unconcerned and inflexible replies. Every person I speak to just gives me another number to call, which gives with an equally unhelpful response.

The customer service is appalling. They do not respect their clients at all. Never fly Air France!

On Saturday, it was still in Paris and was supposed to come with the next flight to Rio, but this was cancelled. Since then, the luggage can not be LOCATED ANYMORE, unbelievable for me.

The hotline is neither helpful nor friendly (shouting at me and hanging up in few cases), complaints are not answered either (sent three already via the web). Information was changed in a wrong way, opening hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. not customer-friendly, mainly busy and not reachable, just telling me "tomorrow we will have more info", same thing next day, no matches.

The tag is known, but maybe the bag lost the tag I was told. So I wonder whether anyone is checking bags without tags?

I was just told I need to wait. I only have 4 1/2 weeks of holidays left but I don't want to call them and wait every day to have the holiday ruined even more .

I have a feeling no one is looking at all as I'm not business or premium (20 lights with KLM last year only). Really bad picture conveyed by an international airline that doesn't care about "normal" passengers.

What a bunch of losers! Never with Air France again.

The purse contained not only an expensive camera, but also a pair of prescription eyeglasses, a pair of sunglasses, as well as my wife's driver's license, complete with our mailing address well documented. We sent an email to the address on June 7th and received an immediate automated response: "We duly received your mail concerning the lost item, and we will do our utmost to investigate. However, if you do not receive any reply from us within 8 days, the tracing has to be considered as negative." About 13 business days have now elapsed and we have received no further word regarding my wife's purse. My efforts to telephone someone at Air France here in the US, in Paris and at CDG keep directing me back to the "mail.objets” email address, where we get no different response. Since Air France told us that they had my wife's purse in their possession on June 7th and they have our mailing address on her driver's license, inside I am mystified as to why the purse cannot be returned. I would like Air France to please assign someone in their organization to locate my wife's purse in their Lost and Found system and return it to us.

I wonder what happened to the baggage tags or the organized handling of luggage. Even if there was complete chaos in Paris, does New York further compound this with more chaos? I would have thought that the fact that Air France lost 15,000 luggage in January 2010 would have taught them something. I would also have thought that the increased security would make baggage tracking much easier.

It is sad to say that this is the third time I have flown with them and all experiences have not been pleasant, the first two involved strikes. However, this last one, which was not of my choosing, but British Airways' assistance to fly me home before Christmas, tops the scale. I think the worst is the complete lack of information and customer service.

I have been travelling for the last 40 years mostly on business and I was never asked to check in my hand-carry baggage which has the right qualifications and measurements. My conclusion is she just wanted us to pay an extra 55 Euros, thus more income for Air France. I tried to defend myself but she would not listen.

If you read other complains of Air France passengers, you will also see that they were taken advantage of. I emailed the Customer Relations 3 times but they were defensive and would not accept they were wrong. Air France employees do not care about their passengers. They should be courteous, friendly especially fair and just! Never make a mistake of flying Air France again!

Around midnight, I had to call the ambulance to take me to the emergency and they arrived in about 10 minutes; otherwise, I wouldn’t be alive now. After that I spent 3 days in the hospital and then at home; but I was still in bed for 12 days and can’t even move due to the medicine I was missing. Anyhow, I contacted Air France but unfortunately nothing is being replaced. The only thing I received is one suit case that was empty and the other one has gone missing. By the way, they have stolen my perfumes, jackets, jeans, sweaters, souvenirs and more.

To be honest, I didn’t remember what I had in my cases. Afterwards, I called my family and I asked what did you put in the cases. They named a lots of things and very expensive ones but they are all gone. I spoke to Air France in Montreal. They asked me to provide them with everything I could and I did because I had to buy new clothes. But this guy, his name is Maxime, from Air France is a big liar. I got nothing. I have proof of all my stuff. I’m waiting for justice if there is any.

I bought brand new clothes from H&M and different stores. I also suffered from my brain injury because I had a surgery (2007-2008) as well. I had to borrow money from friends and sold my iPhone and blackberry for cheap. I started eating one meal a day because I spent my money in the medicine and clothes. As you know, Canada is very cold and I have to be warm all the time and more. Actually I have more damage prior to this incident. Air France: the worst company. It happens to me and the same story with Lufthansa; but after 3 months, they reimbursed me but not with Air France. It’s the most horrible airline. They should call it Air Couscous. By the way, the food they gave us was expired. Cheers.

Complaint number (2): On the return flight, AF1080 leaving Paris for London (delayed an hour) I found the bus ferrying passengers to the waiting plane was too full for me to be able to get on board for claustrophobic reasons. I was remonstrated with, as if I was simply being perverse, and the ground staff made no effort to assure me they would find some other way of getting me to the plane. Again, this is now a routine experience for me and with other airlines, there seems not to be a problem. I have on several occasions been allowed to ride beside the bus driver in his cab, or a separate vehicle has been made available, always with a reassuring 'can do, no problem' attitude.

I knew on this occasion that since my bag had been checked, they could not leave me behind without the inconvenience and further delay of first taking my bag off the plane, so I knew all along they'd have to find a solution, and indeed a member of the ground staff was ordered to take me to the plane in her car, a journey she needed to make anyway, though she was pretty surly about it. But I got there in the end even before those in front of me in the queue had found their seats.

But it was an unsettling and distasteful experience. I am one of those travelers/consumers who can do without sycophantic attention or being wished a nice day at every turn; and neither have I anything against French people, among whom I number some dearest friends, but Air France is the pits. I'd really, really like to help them raise their game, and can only do so by complaining.

Again, 55 minutes is not that late. I just feel like I was trashed out for no reason. On top on that, I paid $250 to arrange my trip for next day, 9/7/2010. Do you think that is fair? The answer is no! So what is the deal now?

Delay of your flight ended up missing our flight (AF0226 on 27.7.2010) from France as well. I missed an extremely important business meeting and ended up missing a day in my industry. We missed our train and hotel which I had booked in advance. Circumstances forced us to buy tickets of deluxe bus, which caused a lot of discomfort to both of us, it was only 10 years back I had traveled in bus and it was their inconvenience which made us travel through this bus.

Although we explained to him that we had already tried this in vain, the representative insisted that we needed to go back to the kiosk. Upon our request he helped us at the kiosk and realized that it doesn’t work without an e-ticket number. The Air France representative then went back to the check-in counter and told us that we were now registered. He then told us that we should go to the end of the line to receive our boarding passes and check-in our luggage. By that time a considerable line had formed and as we already had been at the front of the line, we were requested to go back to our previous position in line.

As the Air France representative was not open to reasoning and insisted that we go to the end of the line, we asked for his name, which he refused to give to us. We then requested to talk to his supervisor who concurred with his colleague that we should give up our position at the front of the line and go to the end of the line. As we asked the supervisor for her name, she told us that her name was Betty. When we requested the full name of the supervisor she wrote it down but her last name was illegible.

As the Air France personnel obviously had no understanding for our request and were not willing to extend due courtesy to us, we followed the instructions that seemed unreasonable to us and went to the end of the line. Back in line and some 15 minutes later, yet another Air France representative asked us if we had our boarding passes. Upon our response that we didn’t have our boarding passes but that one of his colleagues had registered us, he requested that we get out of line and go to the kiosk to get our boarding passes there.

He unhooked the Tensabarrier to escort us out. We refused to get out of the line and asked him to speak to his colleague who had registered us. He however insisted that we get out of the line now, which we continued to refuse repeating our request that he should confer with his colleague, whom we pointed out to him as we didn’t know his name. The representative then dropped the Tensabarrier on the floor and ordered us to pick it up and put it back into its casing. Only after we made clear to him that we were firmly unwilling to follow his request, he reluctantly picked up the Tensabarrier. We finally received our boarding passes and were able to check in our luggage one hour after we started at the front at the line.

Long story short, we were bumped off the flight and there is only one flight everyday. They did pay us money and put us up in the nearby hotel, and we made sure that they booked us with no possibility of getting bumped off for the next days flight. The reason they bumped us off is because AF overbooked their flights and is selling them at higher prices.

When we bought the tickets 3 months ago they were worth $1500 but the week of June 9 they were selling them at $2000. Our trip of a lifetime to Paris which was supposed to last 4 days was cut short to 3 days because we had to join a tour on Sunday night in Italy. This is not the end of the story.

While in Paris, my aunt's wallet got stolen and my passport got stolen. I ended up staying until Monday in Paris but I had to spend half the day at the US embassy trying to get a new passport. I missed 2 days of guided tour in Italy. Note: If AF did not delay us in our original flight we would not be in the wrong place at the wrong time in Paris.

Anyway, as I was trying to catch a flight from Paris CDG to Rome the people behind the AF counter made me run from one side of the terminal to another running with my luggage because they do not give proper instructions as how to obtain the proper ticket and boarding pass.

When finally I got to the right line and waiting for my boarding pass, I called a personnel and told him my flight will be boarding in 5 minutes and I still have to go through security. He did let me go with him and helped me with my boarding pass only problem is he was giving me long sermon about using the machine to get my boarding pass (excuse me! nobody would help me figure the machine out and it was in French) and he was making sure I learn my lesson the next time and doing things the proper way.

All the time the clock was ticking, I told him about the lack of time and he only smiled and continue to lecture me and told me that the only reason he is doing this is so that I will learn my lesson. (Learned my lesson alright, never fly Air France ever, ever again, also my cousin who is 10 years old will never fly AF again in her lifetime).

As a consequence of the delay in flight we were robbed in Paris, my aunt's wallet and my passport. I had to stay 1 more day in Paris but I spent it at the US embassy trying to get a new passport, re-booked my flight from Paris to Rome which they charged me 210 EU. And I missed 2 days of guided tour in Rome. My aunt and cousin only got to only stay in Paris for 3 days instead of the original 4 days.

This is totally unfair, we were not late checking at the airport, we paid our plane fare months ago, it is not our fault Air France overbooked their flights.

When I got home and thought about how much the taxes were, I was concerned because $856.98 seemed too high. I went on line and placed the same tickets without using my reward points and the taxes only came to $225.98. I called Air France and they told me that the additional $631 was a fuel surcharge. I asked if I would be charged this if I was paying for these tickets and I was told "no", that this is only for Rewards Point purchases. I feel this is unjust and I am actually paying for another ticket. 150,000 points took a long time to earn with American Express. And if air France does not want to do this program with them, that is one thing. But it is not my issue and I could have used my Reward Points somewhere else. Thank you.

I arrived at terminal 1 and was told that Thai doesn't fly from there then show him the board behind him (the only one) which showed that Thai flies from Terminal 1. Run to terminal 1. No board showing where flight leaves from. No information desk or person to ask. "Ask police at customs." He also doesn't know. I have to run back to shuttle gate. The guy tells me it is terminal one, makes two phone calls and tells me flight is delayed and to go to gate 40-48 terminal 1. I run back there. I was told flight has left long before.

After insisting, agent actually writes it on my ticket that I have a flight next day at 10am the next day but there would be no help with hotels, etc. and to go ask at Air France desk in departure. I go through immigration. Air France now tells me that it is a separate airline and therefore a separate contract and the woman at Air France in Santo Domingo made a mistake. They could no t help me with hotels or rebooking. Sorry. I then have to change money, buy an internet card, buy coffee at Starbucks so I can use WiFi and call Thai airways who, as usual, were incredibly helpful. They said they had a new flight at 1340 the next day.

Now, whether Air France booked it for me and didn't tell me I have no idea. In any case, truly bad form. I then had to pay $100 to change my connecting Bangkok to China flight, lost a day of holiday and had to sleep at CDG airport as I had no suitable clothes for cold weather. Also I had a 24 hour layover. Unbelievable! And the airport is not set up for international travel at all. No sleeping area. No free WiFi. The Parisians could learn a thing or two from the Singaporeans about setting up an airport for travelers!

AF ticket counter in Rio was unwilling to help us and even rude at times so we decided to call the 800 number after 1 hour wait on line a ticket agent at their reservation desk which I believe is in Canada told us that AF had in fact seats but it would cost my daughter and I an extra $1,687.00 USD in order to get to our destination on April 25, 2010.

My daughter and I were on a full fare economy ticket (over $5,000.00 USD) already and my sister was on a discount fare ($2,713.00 USD) so her up-charge was too much and therefore she had to miss her vacation. Unfortunately we were at the mercy of AF and we did see their true colors. When our flights were cancelled, I thought that AF would understand the situation and not get greedy and take advantage of the volcano and punish it's good customers. Loss of pre-paid rooms in Vietnam, pre-paid car rental plus $1,687.00 for extra payment on my airline ticket and my sister loss of her vacation.

Small anecdote: I was traveling with 2 of my colleges on this flight and it just happened that there were another 2 business men on the way to Tel-Aviv on the same route from Marseille to Tel-Aviv with same flights. Guess what? Non of their baggage have left Marseille! Food for thought, the common denominator in this story is that all baggage were tagged with TLV! 80 Euro worth of cheese is down the drain. One small kid in agony for not getting his present. 1 baggage still missing with some cloth and shoes.

I'm really disappointed. They gave use vouchers for one sandwich and on small drink, not even enough for a kid to survive! We were standing in the airport in front of the Air France counter for hours and they were trying just to figure out what to do with us. I'm a very frequent flyer because of my work and this was the first time to see such things that shouldn't even happen to a beginner airlines! The terrible day ended up by us sleeping on the floor of the airport until next day morning. They didn't treat us like humans. Most of the passengers were sleeping on the floor as if we were in a refugee camp. Then they switched my flight to a different airline next day which was also delayed!

The story of course ended by me losing my bags which I don't know where are they until now. The bag has important scientific papers inside that I spent months collecting them, had books I study from. I don't know what to do or what to say? Terrible service and the lesson I learned is I'll never use Air France again and I don't advise anybody to use these terrible airlines.

I can clearly recall that at the check-in counter, the lady servicing my husband and me made a mistake with my name on the boarding pass. Instead of Ms. Ritu **, I was issued a boarding pass for Mr. R **. I came back to the counter to get it corrected, but by then, our baggage had moved on the conveyor belt. The lady ensured us that the baggage tags would be corrected and that there would be no problem with our bags. Clearly, this was not done.

After our repeated calls to the Air France Baggage Handling services in India, the baggage was finally delivered to us after 4 days. But by then, we were forced to buy new clothes and toiletries for the wedding. This was a huge financial blow to us.

On our journey back to Manchester, we were charged (INR 6,900 or EUR 103) for extra baggage. And in spite of that, my baggage went missing again. Why I was charged for a service which was not provided to me is beyond my understanding, let alone the fact that the baggage is missing till now. The flight to Paris CDG from New Delhi (AF225) was slightly late. The buses between the terminals were running with low frequency. There were no staff to help us out at any place on the CDG airport. And as result of all this, we missed our connecting flight to Manchester on 20-12-09. Normally, at any good international airport, one would expect the airline staff to assist passengers in whatever manner possible in order to help them board their scheduled flights.

Anyway, we ran to the check-in counter at Terminal 2E and were told that we had missed our flight. The lady at the check-in counter informed us that the next flight for Manchester at 1.15 p.m. had been cancelled due to bad weather and booked us on the 15.45 flight which got cancelled eventually. After a series of cancellations, we were finally provided tickets for 15.45 flight on 21-12-09.

We were taken to the police desk for transit/tourist visa, so that we could stay the night at a hotel near the CDG airport. The police refused the visa to us, and when we asked the Air France staff dealing with our case, she informed us (me and my husband and one more passenger of the same nationality) that the police did not give any reason, but that upon seeing our passports, the police had rejected our visa application.

I don't know why we were refused visa in the first place nor were we offered any explanations. But to be honest, refusing visa to passengers who have been stranded at the airport for a night without a valid reason sounds like racial bias but nothing else. I have read enough stories of people being mistreated and subjected to racism. But this was my first horrendous experience.

For 36 hours that we spent at CDG airport, every meal coupon that is my right as a passenger was made to sound like charity. We had to spend money out of our pockets at the airport. The beddings were provided late in the night, and to be honest, we didn't sleep for a minute. It was snowing outside and the sub-standard airport lacks temperature control. We kept moving from one place to another all night. My husband and I developed sore throat and backache with no rest.

When we finally boarded the flight on 21-12-09, I asked the air hostess if she could confirm that our bags have been loaded on the aircraft. While I was speaking to her, I saw the baggage carrier outside the window and spotted my red Samsonite suitcase in it. I showed it to the air hostess as well. She said that she would check with the pilot and confirm to us. She took our boarding passes for reference.

While she was away, I noticed that the man loading the baggage shut the aircraft baggage door and took the remaining bags away (which included my bag). When the air hostess came back to us, she said that the pilot has confirmed that both our baggage are on board. What kind of information is being passed on to passengers?

When we arrived at Manchester Airport, my baggage went missing. Like all other passengers, we went to the baggage services counter and did the formality required to open a file for missing baggage. In spite of being at a permanent address, my husband and I have had to spend money to buy shoes and woolens to go to work, as our shoes, clothes, and woolens were in the suitcase.

Air France is citing bad weather as the cause for this mishap. But this is not the first time that Air France has had a problem with baggage. My husband on an earlier occasion has experienced delayed baggage for 4 days, and we have been first-hand witnesses where passengers have lost their baggage. Clearly, the problem is not with the weather but Air France itself.

I have found Air France baggage handling to be highly unprofessional, as this is the second time my baggage has been delayed on the same trip. Obviously, we will not be traveling with Air France henceforth, as the experience with them has caused us nothing except stress, mental agony, harassment, physical discomfort, and monetary loss. We are still waiting to hear about our baggage, and it's been 18 days so far.

It is ethically and morally wrong to prevent anyone from using the bathroom due to a natural bodily function. I am only human. Not only did I have to sit in discomfort and pain while I was sweating, I could not believe the extreme crass of the attendants as they refused to allow passengers to use the restroom. I even heard one male flight attendant curse as a passenger tried to race to the bathroom because she could no longer hold it and yet he still stopped her and very rudely told her to go back to her seat. After a few hours, I could no longer wait any longer and I begged the flight attendant to allow me to use the restroom; however, she still refused. I eventually cried. This is the first time I have cried on a flight because I was not given the right to use the restroom.

Do you realize how humiliating that is? Additionally, I am disappointed and shocked that the lady flight attendant allowed the passenger next to me to use the bathroom before myself while she escorted her. I cannot believe or understand the discrimination and extreme pain and discomfort I experienced on this flight. This was the first time I flew on Air France, one of the world’s largest airlines, and, to me, the most disappointing airline. This was also my first visit to Europe and because of Air France, I started my trip very negatively. Holding your urine in for too long can result in a bladder infection, which if left untreated can lead to kidney infections. I have never had to hold waste in my body for this long. I just do not understand how Air France can condone such behavior. I would like this letter to be given to higher ranking officials so that I know action will be taken to resolve this matter. Thank you.

After I sent the letter, I received no response so I sent in another letter requesting an update. I feel like it is just a typical response letter for all complaints. Please help me.

I completely understand that such companies have to run tight schedules, but the treatment we received when we finally arrived at the checkout counter was totally idiotic, to say the least. Even though the check-in counter had closed, the flight was still in the process of boarding, as there was at least another thirty minutes before take off. Absolutely, no effort was made to try and get my parents to the plane before take off.

I would like to add that I had completed internet check-in twenty-four hours before, and so, there would be no need to go through the check-in procedure. The response from the staff was basically this: "The check-in is closed, and you will now have to buy new flights." Even if this was the case, the way that we were told this was with absolute no care or respect for our situation, especially with my father being so ill and needed to be back in England for doctor's visits. The only thing the staff seemed to be bothered about was making more money by selling us more seats and having no thought or care to my parents' situation.

In my opinion, they had every opportunity and time to rush through my parents, so that they could make their flight; but a straight no from the office was all we got combined with "Give us another two thousand pound, and we will fit you on the next flight." I would like to add that yes, the tickets were non-transferable or refundable; but if this company is quite willing to leave a sick man stranded with no money to pay for an extra flight and with zero concern for his situation, then the whole event is an absolute disgrace.

They would not let me on the plane, although they said they didn't doubt that I had paid the $249. They implied that I had lost or misplaced the paper ticket. I said I had never received such a ticket in the first place. Furthermore, I did have the single piece of paper he gave me, along with the info about my initial reservation from my travel agency (bought some months ago); that I always kept all my travel info (flights and hotel reservations) in a single, transparent, bright green plastic envelope, and that, because paper tickets are unusual these days, I would have noticed and taken care of such a ticket had I received one. The result was that in order to leave as planned, I had to buy a new ticket at American Airlines for about 676 pounds UK (exchange rate then was $1.61 per pound). I did have to leave because my brother was ill and I was not well myself; also, staying in the UK would have cost well over $100 a day (the airport hotel Ibis where I had stayed that night cost $89 a night).

I have been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea requiring me to sleep with a CPAP machine. I have called Air France in order to verify if there was an electrical supply on board so that I could use my CPAP for my 12-hour flight. To my great surprise, disappointment and anger, the agent said that there is nothing they can do for me. There is no electrical plug whatsoever on board and they cannot install one just for me. The agent started to raise her voice seeming impatient to help a client. I was so upset as to how this situation was handled by an agent from Air France.

I than asked to speak to a supervisor, whom the agent was reluctant to put on the line prompting me: "Why do you want to talk to a manager? It is about what issue?" Finally, the supervisor was on the line which was even worst! I explained that I was not very happy, not because there is no electrical plug on board but I was mad on how the agent talked and addressed my issues. His tone was definitely not respectful and he said in a loud voice, "I have no idea what you are talking. I cannot accommodate you on board then." Clearly, a lack of effective communication skills!

There should never be shouting, lack of respect or irritability. Air France agents chose to work for the Air France company; they are deem to be meeting the standards of clientele services! I think, in my situation, I clearly understood there were no electrical supply on board and I am not blaming them for that. But my situation should have been handled well and they should collaboratively find something that can be done for me. I am not asking for an electrical plug for charging my iPod.

I also find it ridiculous that air planes do not have electrical plugs or batteries on board. Yes, I may have opted not to use my CPAP for my flight but it will be to my disadvantage because I will experience severe headaches and increase sleepiness that would make me unable to function. On top of all this, I am also diagnosed with narcolepsy (excessive daytime sleepiness with paralysis while sleeping)! Me using the CPAP would greatly reduce the chances of experiencing paralysis (cataplexy) and suffocation during my sleep. I have paid $2,000 for my trip all with Air France and I have never ever been treated by agents in other airlines that way.

Her grotesque attitude, coldness and making us wait to extort us to the last minute to pay a 10% fee was abusive. I recorded her on my cell phone. She refused to grant any help other than threats that she would not let us fly, when we were in the total right of doing so. Since the problem Air France had was with Orbitz, not with us customers who had asked 2 times and were informed 2 times to go to the airport with our infant and his passport proving he is 18 months old and that that would suffice ...

Mrs. ** yelled at my wife. My wife said, "You are extorting us ..." and this lady replied with more yells and tremendous coldness to us 4 even though our 1-year-old was crying. She did not take her battle with the very people who sells Air France tickets. She took it on a family of 4 at 11 pm that night. Once we gave in to paying what we considered an extortion and abuse but under the threat, we decided to pay since our vacation could be ruined. I asked Mrs. ** for a complaint number for Air France. She refused. She went inside her office. I had to ask 2 times for her to come back. Finally under pressure, she provided me a business card with nothing but her own office number. Then I asked her to please hurry since we had been arguing this matter for a while, we had paid what she wanted and to please finish the check in promptly.

To this she said, "I have another flight leaving now, I will finish you when I finish you..." Our kids kept crying; she asked us in French to get them away from the counter. I said again, "Please hurry, we already paid. I want to leave and our family is fed up of your arrogance..." She did not respond. She went back in her office again! Finally, she came back and the final check up was done. I asked her if she could at least provide my 1-year-old a seat. She said no, that he travels in my lap with a cold accent. Then we ran to the gate. We received no help as a family traveling with an infant. We were simply shocked to see this since all airlines have a priority to help families with infants. This was the treatment by this manager and her team, who some of them did say that we were right, absolutely right, when Mrs ** was absent. But this woman took an attitude and a dislike that no customer paying a fee should ever experience, specially when traveling with kids and an infant.

We are appalled by Air France and this manager. We tried in Paris, to complain. All we got was, "No, you cannot complain in Paris; you must complain in the US with Air France there..." Here in the US, their number never gets you anyone. I have left messages and no one ever calls. I have written and it's the same. Their webpage gives no number for customer service. They ask you to write - we did. Then when you write on their complaint section, 98% of the time, the webpage says that there is an error and you can't submit. I think this airline is trying so much to not let anyone in the US do a claim or complaint. They just bounce you to see if you get tired, but as you can see, we are so very offended by this treatment that we want to denounce Air France and Mrs. ** at JFK International, in the hope that we get our money back and that the US Customer Affairs do not allow them to treat families this way. It is simply un-American and if they operate in the US, they should not treat people that way, especially families with infants! Thank you.

We booked the fare and when we got to the Paris airport, they did not ask us for any documentation of our relationship. On our return in Marseille, they did ask us for proof of our relationship. The ticketing desk stated that we needed to have proof such as something showing the same address or an insurance card. When we told them that in Paris, they had let us through without documentation, the Air France representatives would not admit that a mistake was made in Paris. They told us Air France had given us a gift(?) by allowing us to fly from Paris to Marseille, but if we wanted to return, we would have to pay the difference in the fares (for a non-couple fare) of 340 euros.

We explained that it was Air France's mistake to let us through in Paris, and had they not, we would have gotten a refund for the fare and driven as originally planned. However, because of the mistake that Air France made, we not only had no other way to get back to Paris, but we had to pay an extra 340 euros to get on the flight. They would not make an exception for their mistake and no one took responsibility for the mistake. There was a manager (a man the representative we were speaking to called his leader?) who appeared not to speak any English, but seemed to have the authority to let us through. He did not speak one word to us except no, and the representative we spoke to did not seem to be translating everything we said, and insisted that the leader(?) understood what was going on. It also happened to be a holiday, and everyone at the ticketing desk told us there was no one else who could help us.

We also tried to explain that even an engaged couple may not have proof(?) of their relationship if they are not living together. The website does not give specific examples of what sort of documentation might be adequate and the Air France representatives had no answer for us as to what sort of documentation an unmarried couple might provide.

The actual condition of the fare (while ridiculous) is not what upset us. It was the fact that if they always require documentation of a relationship, it was clearly Air France's mistake to let us on the plane in Paris, and Air France did nothing to rectify the mistake. Not only did they not rectify the mistake, they would not even admit they made a mistake. The mistake Air France made cost us 340 euros. If they had prevented us from boarding in Paris, we would have understood. Once Air France made the mistake, however, we should have been allowed to travel on the return flight without further penalty.

To top everything off, the representatives we spoke to refused to give us their names and only the leader(?) would give us his name (which I am not actually able to make out well, the best I can make it out is JC **). They also could not give us a phone number to customer service but rather handed us an envelope. We are writing to Air France to request a refund of the 340 euros extra that we had to pay for the fare.

First, I had a flight to Egypt in October 2007 which - I discovered by coincidence - has not been added to the balance of my miles though it was shown in the e-ticket. Second, I received a very short notice regarding my miles expiry date, as I received your letter mid-February 09 telling me that I have only till April 09 to use my miles.

Third, after calling your customer service representatives to check the availability for the miles exchange in the month of March 09, I was wrongly informed that I have till the end of April 09 to do that. On April 13, 09, I called to make the necessary arrangements to exchange my miles. I was informed that I lost my miles on the 3rd of April as the company changed the regulations without prior notice! Also, since I was surprised by this action, the Flying Blue representative mentioned that I will find in the Flying Blue's general conditions, a condition stating that the company has the right to change the dates without any prior notice. Even though I found this statement not fair to the customer, the Flying Blue representative guided me via the web to the general conditions where we couldn't find this rule anywhere. He ended the conversation by saying, "Sir, it is here somewhere and I won't stay and argue with you."

Now, I need a quick curative action for my current situation as I am a loyal client for Air France and intend to be for the future unless Flying Blue doesn't really care about its clients and its reputation. Thanks for your prompt reply.

I am very upset with the service I have been receiving from the Baggage depart in HK. There has been absolutely no one helpful besides a girl name Selena, but there has been no solution nor clue with the whereabouts of my luggage. Everyone else from the department is very rude and avoids my questions of the whereabouts of my luggage. Everyones' attitude have been very nonchalant and no urgency have been shown at all. I am so dissapointed with Air France and the way they deal with a lost luggage.

There are very important business documents in there and also items for clients. I am so upset at my loss that this has cost my company and business that I am seeking further action with the imcompetence fo the staff and their procedures and non-urgency of the situation. I don't feel that AF has done their best nor found an effective solution for me AT ALL. I vow to not take AF and will inform my business associates of the bad service and carelessness of the AF.

Well I cannot even explain the losses they have cost my company, as we have some very important business items in my luggage and documents I needed for my business clients and associates in Europe. There were a few electronic products in there and the business suits I have in there that cannot be replaced.

I was surprised when they rejected the request to compensate for that loss based on the fact that I did not submit the request within 7 days which I did. I feel I may have been discriminated as this happened in Algiers airport. I would not trust Air France again. Loss of $1400 in gifts, personal items. Gifts to kids have no measurable value as nothing can replace the disappointment of a kid over a gift he was waiting for for several months....

On the 27th I got into the web-page of AF and tried to get indications as to how to go about resolving the problem. I called the customer care office and was told that I had 7 days to file a complaint and that due to my boarding in the Americas, I had to call the 800 CS number in Mexico. I called that number repeatedly and got no answer so I sent a fax to the Baggage Claims Office of KLM and AF. Since I got no answer I called several offices of AF and KLM. The passed the problem to the other company and would not even open an official complaint.

Finally I spoke to a lady supervisor at an office outside Milan and explained my problem to her. She told me she could not do anything, but gave me a number of another agent who might help me. I called him and he said that he knew about my case and recommended that I take my luggage to an official store and have it evaluated. The store states in a document that the luggage is no reparable and that to replace it would cost two hundred and fifteen euro.

Also, that upon my return in Costa Rica, I had 7 days to file the complaint. I did this and presented the originals that I had to the AF KLM office in San Jos. I asked them to stamped received? and they did. The told me that it would take between 1 and 3 months to get an answer. A week and a half ago I got an answer from a Mr. Maxime L. Encargado del Servicio de Atencin al Cliente. He tells me that despite the fact that the case filing time was over, they would recognize $150 for the damages and that an agent from the accounting department would get in touch with me.

This week I was contacted by Mr. M from AF and advised to go and pick up the check. I had already written to Mr. L, communicating that I was not in agreement with their decision since the estimated value was 215 euro. I resent the same mail to Mr. M. Air France KLM has shown negligence in treating the entrusted luggage. They have also shown a Customer Care apparatus that its almost purposely done in a confusing way, with agents that contradict what others instruct you to do and useless web sites and phone numbers. Finally they pretend to respond to the damage they have caused with a symbolic figure. They have shown an insulting arrogance and ever worse negligence.

They managed to ruin my first days of vacation and 215 euro.

On my last conversation I was told to resend the documents. When I told that I had sent the originals as asked by [them] then I was told that they only wanted duplicate copies. This is third time that I ve been asked to resend.Firstly I had sent fax then this post and now wondering is there any use of sending again and adding to the time and efforts that I am spending on this.

On reading experiences of other unfortunate passengers I strongly feel that there should be some sort of action taken in the direction of safegaurding the interest of consumers from the cynical business practices of so called BIG AIRLINES like Air France and make the existence of such forum fruitful.

And while I have been waiting for a response, I received a call from Air France yesterday (David) stating my ticketed and confirmed flight had a change and they need to put me on a different flight and time. As instructed, I called immediately and talked with a very abrupt agent (couldn't catch her name). She was rude, dismissive and didn't care if the new flight was convenient for me. When I mentioned that there have been a cummulative amount issues associated with this flight and that I'd like to speak with a manager, she said no one was available...and stated she had met all my needs with this confirmation, said good bye and promptly hung up on me. That is no way to run a customer service department or a company for that matter.

I immediately called Air France back and talked with Amanda who was understanding. I mentioned my issues, the fact I was just hung up on, and that Dale had yet to respond to my previous complaint. She also said management was busy and unavailable. She noted my letter had been received and it usually took Dale two weeks to respond. My next step is to contact corporate personnel and the CEO, repeatedly if needed. Following my upcoming trip to Mexico in January, I plan to cancel my Air France Flying Blue account, forfeit the remainder of my reward miles and never fly Air France again. The treatment of customers by Air France is deplorable.

Rude and unresponsive customer service at Air France.

Instead I was told I would need to fax my complaint to Dale D'orsay of which I did on August 6th. The following day I received another message from Air France like before, this time saying my flight had gone up again and was now $369.82. Still having received no reply from Dale D'orsay, I called again and spoke with an agent named Summer who said it was quite common for prices to change from the confirmed quoted price and could occur depending on when Air France finally issued the ticket and the fluctuation in taxes. That doesn't make sense to me. She did say she had not seen one jump in price as much as mine though. And she said it was common for ticketing agents to mis-calcucate miles needed for a trip, justifying the need to now deduct 30,000 miles instead of the quoted 25,000.

Summer also said management was not available and I would have to pay the price (another new figure) of $360.57 or lose the reservation I confirmed altogether. Given I had already made my hotel rsvp and arrangements to have my flight coincide with a friend, I didn't really have a choice in the matter. If I had been quoted this price when I confirmed my reservation or received word of Air France's mistake earlier than 2 weeks, I would have made other arrangements. I like to fly Air France and expect quality service. But to use Flying Blue miles or talk to management is another issue.

This action by Air France was unprofessional and dishonest. Summer assured me she would personally retrieve my fax and give it to Dale D'orsay. I still have yet to receive a call back or any acknowledgement from Dale D'orsay or anyone at Air France. Now that I was forced to pay this higher amount I doubt they care. I will try not to fly Air France in the future.

Required to pay higher ticket price and redeem more reward miles that originally quoted and confirmed through reservation.

2.One woman had no idea where Bucharest, Romania was.

3. When asked where I lived I told one woman, Argentina. She asked me in which country Argentina was located. I booked 3 award flights, 1 on Air France and 2 on KLM, an Air France partner. I was given a confirmation number and received a letter via email in French; no I don't read French. I went to the Air France office here in Buenos Aires and asking very nicely if I could get a cpoy of the flights, which I was able to get online. At first, the woman told me that it wasn't possible, but without my asking again, she changed her mind and gave it to me.

I called Flying Blue to make a change in one of the flights and was told that a seat was available and the there would be a $50.00 charge. I gave the woman my credit card information. They never gave me a confirmation and I never asked for one. Instead of flying to Paris from Bucharest, I would now be flying to Paris from Prague. I then cancelled a hotel reservation in Bucharest and booke a room in Prague. I also bought a plan ticket to go from Varna, Bulgaria to Prague.

All seemed perfect, until I got to the Prague Airport on the morning of July 11th, 2008. I was told by the air France agent that they had no record of my flying to Paris from Prague! Well, I was forced to buy a onw way business class ticket (apparently one way tickets are only sold in business class) for 17.993 Czech Crowns, which is about $1200.00. The woman that sold me the ticket seemed to be praying that my creditcard would be declined; it wasn't. i had no alternative, as there was no other flight on any airline that would get me to Paris in time to get my connecting flight to N.Y. No I never contacted Flying Blue.

The reason I am writing this letter is to possibly find out how many people are going through what I went through or even worse everyday. How can they book flight to Bucharest and Buenos Aires if they don't know where they are? Luckily, I was travelling alone; what if.... How can I go I go on record to tell people what had happened to me.

Passenger is stranded in Shanghai, with no resolution. Air France customer service doesn't exist and they refuse to comunicate with any supervisor to take a decision. Passenger now have to pay for a new one way ticker and afford hotel and additional expenses due to Air France incompetence.

Afterwards, I went to obtain another flight. I understood I would not be able to leave that day, so I asked to speak to a manager so I could discuss all of my options and get a contact just in case my boss had questions (I was going to miss a crucial meeting). They refused. I insisted on seeing her manager or at least get her contact information. She refused to give me either her contact information or her managers. I was astonished. Even in the most backwater hotel in Africa, management existed to ensure the highest levels of customer satisfaction. But here, in CDG, their management hid, refused to disclose their names, and I even had the ticket person to tell me not to cause trouble or else they would ensure I would not get out the next day.

So their organization through threats, secrecy, and following a level of customer service that rivals my days in Soviet Russia, has succeeded in creating what my business fears most. An anti customer. I personally will never travel their airline again. Another enemy of Air France.

At the time of serving coffee which she was serving everybody she asked all for milk and sugar but I was singled out once again. I wonder why she did this as am sure I had not done anything to offend her sensibility. I felt like telling her all to her rude face but controlled. Gosh, hope no one else gets to face this.

My luggage arrived at my home on 14-Jun-08 by an unofficial personnel on an auto rickshaw in full lamination. Keeping in mind my last years experience i signed the delivery form unsuspectingly. But when I opened the lamination the small zipper locks were broken and held in place by a small plastic strip. Also the leather belts were cut. And on opening the bag i find that all valuable gifts are missing. I called Air france baggage services about 60-70 times ( each call gets matured with autmatic welcome message but no one comes to talk so it meant 60-70 calls get charged to me) before getting someone to answer my call. To pacify me I was told that airlines will take the responsibilty of what has happened and give compensation. I told them that i dont have any proof of purchases of the items to which i was told that its not required. was hard to believe but there no other option.

Then,as was asked by person on phone i sent a complaint email to AF with the list and approximate value of the missing items. These included a brand new cell phone, a used cell phone , perfumes with a total value of approx 250. I was told that I would be contacted in 3 days. 4th day, having not been contacted i again called AF baggage services in Delhi about the action taken.Again after about 40-50 calls i get a reply that they have not received any email from me.They gave me an alternate email address. This time the email reached them but instead of taking any action they forwarded me a claim reference number and told me that my case would be addressed by UK or France baggage services. So again left with no other option but to wait for 2 weeks after which i had to fly back to UK with a hope of better treatment and better customer service in UK than in India.

But the only improvement was that now the call is answered in 1st attempt but what follows is more horrible than what used to happen in India. The guy on the line is not so good in English and its hard to explain him what happened and hard to tell him the claim reference number. On my first call from UK I was told to fax them original copies of ticket , boarding pass , bag tag number , my bank details and invoices if any. Now after about 3 weeks of the incident and without being told how am i supposed to keep hold of the small piece of boarding pass. Also I had to throw the bag as it was rendered unusable and with that the bag tag had also gone. If all this was required I should have been told when i called AF on day of incident. The guy online still told me to make it written that I dont have some of the documents and still my complaint will be answered in 20days. I faxed all that i had along with the delayed baggage report on 3rd July.

With no response till 21 July i contacted AF UK again to which i am told that they have not received any fax and i need to send all documents to AF office in France. Plus this time the guy online clearly tells me that no Boarding pass means no compensation. On seeing change in my tone after this , the guy changed his mind and told me to send whatever i can and i would be contacted in 20 days. Now i am going to send my complaint to France with no hope and I think the story would continue as with many others on this forum.

Moreover the bag is left useless with its zipper locks broken and leather belts around it cut. At delhi I am asked to relax and send them an email and that would suffice to get me compensation and then slowly slowly they demand such things which I dont think anyone would keep safe like a small piece of boarding pass and baggage tags. Next they might ask me to show them the plate in which i had taken dinner in the flight. Boarding pass and baggage tag should be there in AF system. I have air ticket and i have delayed baggage report with me. Isnt that enough to prove that i have boarded AF flight and there has been some problem with my luggage. If some attorneys read this then please contact me as i would like not to stop here and take it up as much as possible and if somehow its brought to notice of general public and Higher officials at AF.

We have not clothes left for today to even go down for meals at our hotel. Because we were told when we arrvied on 18th that we would receive our luggage on Saturday evening, we did not buy extra clothes and accessories for today. I get the impression that this common with Air France as there is not sufficient transfer time for transfer. In this case Air France could be honest and tell passengers what to expect after arrival or even at the time of booking the holiday. I look forward to her from you. P.S. It is a shame that we had to spend our holdiay money buying clothes which we will not be reimbursed after the holdiay. We only came here with the limited spending money.

Air France failed to inform customers at the point of reservation/purchase that any changes to the flight schedule must be made before March 17th original departure date or else the ticket will be treated as forfeited. Trying to resolve the issue in an amicable manner, I tried to make compromises with Air France/Priceline during my call with them on 3/11/2008, 3/13/2008 and 3/17/2008 by complying with their restrictions and reschedule the flight to an alternative future departure date.

I requested to be rescheduled to ANY departure date that will cause minimal airfare difference between what I have already paid for vs what they will charge me for the new airfare. I was told by the reservation agent that ANY departure date they could reschedule me to will require me to pay $1,500 for the new ticket in addition to the $230 penalty fee for making changes to my flight. I was left with no choice but to either forfeit the entire $520 airfare Ive already paid for or else pay $1230 additional fee in order to use the supposedly $520 credit with them.

I do not consider Air France practices to be fair in anyway to consumers (its more of a bait and switch sales practice). I was forced to either paying $520 for nothing or pay $1500 (additional airfare fee) +$230(penalty)+$520= +$2200 fee for a whole lot more trouble.

again i showed the reciept and told him i bought them in punta cana while waiting for thier delayed flight. all he said was leave the bottles or he would call the police.then he said that the bag wasnt sealed to which i replied that they dont in punta cana.and again he issued another treat of the police.people were looking on at this stage and i felt like a criminal and very embaressed considering that i had broken no laws and was nt told by the staff in either punta cana nor paris that i had done anything wrong. i feel very agreaved and very hurt by the treatment i recieved and the gross impolitness and threats i got.

the bottles of drink i bought were only worth 40 dollars, that is not the piont, it was the feeling of embarassment and the igmoninity of being treated like a common criminal is just not going to go away. i feel very upst by all of this and dont wish to ever have to fly to or connect in paris again.

Because of this, he had to stay in Amman for 3 days instead of the original one day he had planned on as he was headed to Damascus. I have called Air France, emailed them a complaint and you can not speak to a person who seems to know anything. They said it could take up to 10 days to get an answer via email on the complaint. This is ridiculous. What a terrible, terrible airline!

My husband had to delay his trip 3 days in Amman as he is heading to Damascus to see his elderly father. There were numerous gifts and clothing in the luggage. He had to buy new clothes, toiletries, etd.

Each time that I contacted Flying Blue with their Non-friendly customer service and they were not able to search and find a ticket for me since they only search for 20 days availability and after that they kept hanging up on me after numerous times. The only thing that they were able to inform me was to call back later and to keep trying, I was trying to get in contact with their supervisor or manager and they kept denying me that right. Finally on Tuesday April 1st while I was in Seattle I was able to find a ticket and got the confirmation and gave them my Amex card for airport taxes, and finally they were able to confirm it after a couple of hours (Confirmation YAYMPZ). Few hours after the confirmation was complete they called me and informed me to go to Air France airport in Seattle to get the ticket since the ticket was a paper ticket; I had to drive 40-50 miles in order to get to the airport. Unfortunately it was the opposite of what they had confirmed with me earlier and there was no one in their Air France office and I was informed that their office is open when they have flights only and the other days they will not have anyone available.

The day after (April 2nd) I was in Los Angeles and I contacted them and again they asked me to go to LAX airport and since their office is open from 6am-9pm at the airport I was going to be able to get the ticket there. I went to the airport to the Air France counter and talked to Rima K. and her manager and they said that they dont issue flying blue tickets at Air France office at the airport. They asked me to go to North West to see if they would give me the ticket and once I went to the North West office and talked to Martin at KLM and he said that they have nothing to do with Flying Blue and Air France tickets. So once again for the second time I had to drive back home over 40 miles with empty hands and very unsatisfied.

On Thursday (April 3rd) I called Flying Blue and talked to Chelsea Mathew which she told me that she was going to overnight the ticket to me due to their wrong information for 2 times and making me drive so long every time to go to airport. Since the ticket was purchased for my (over 70 years old) father in law I gave her his address and full contact information as well in case. We never got the ticket on Friday and since the flying blue offices are closed on Saturday and Sunday I had to wait till Monday which is departure date. During the weekend I had contacted the Air France a few times to see if they can do anything about my on going problem but on fortunately when there is an issue they have nothing to do with other departments so they would not be able to help me with Flying Blue ticket but What I did was to reserve another ticket just in case for Tuesday morning with reservation number for $1700.00 and they informed me that this reservation is only valid till Tuesday (since the phone was on speaker phone I have 2 wideness).

On Monday morning I called flying Blue at 8am and talked to Christian about the ticket and he said that the ticket was never issued nor mailed but he advised me to have my father in law to go to Seattle Airport Air France or KLM office and they can issue the ticket. I asked him (numerous times) if he can call to make sure that everything is fine at the airport because I had bad previous experiences and he said that they werent able to make any outgoing calls and he said that everything was fine 100%, so I sent my old Father in Law to get the ticket and unfortunately when he got there at 9:30AM they were closed again so I called Flying Blue again and talked to Andrew and Bob and both of them said that they were 100% sure that the Air France members were going to be there at 10:05am on Monday April 7, 2008 so my father in Law stayed there waiting and still no one showed up so Bob (Flying Blue customer service on the phone) advised me to send him to KLM office and he said for sure they can issue the ticket there. The poor old man had to walk over 1 mile in order for him to get to the KLM office as Flying Blue customer service on the phone advised us.

So he ends up going there to the KLM counter and talks to Matt and he tried all his best to contact Flying Blue and Air France but they didnt let him issue the ticket and on the other side I called Flying Blue again while Matt was on the phone with Flying blue and they were denying his request so I talked to Irene and she told me that everything is fine and that we just needed to get the ticket at the KLM office and when I put her on conference call with matt she said that they cant issue the paper ticket since it has to come from Canada. My father in law lost his flight and I called Air France to get the other ticket that was reserved for Tuesday but unfortunately they had sold my reservation ticket and my seat and now they offered me a ticket for over 3-4,000.00 dollars. Now we spent over 2 weeks of our time, headaches, phone calls, fights, broken promises trying to resolve this issue. I am back on my seat searching for a ticket once again; it was such a Air France Air line and Flying Blue, plus all the nightmares I had honestly I cant even look at my wife and his dad anymore. I wish they would charge me for a ticket price instead of going through all this like I had asked them to do so and leaving me with shame.

i had to buy another ticket for more price from another airline. over 2 weeks of waisted time, all headaches and etc

80 euros loss+1000 rs loss in lodging the complaint

I'm out $2,703 dollars and stressed out. I will never fly Air France and will tell everybody.

The service on the plane too was substandard. I would call for the air hostess for hot water for the baby bottle, and at times they never showed up. It was kind of passengers traveling in the next seat to give me their baby's hot water. At Paris, the lady at the boarding desk for the Bristol flight informed me that I would have to go down the flight of stairs to the bus by myself, and as expected that they would not provide me with any assistance. When the flight was finally canceled, the ground staff paid no attention to me despite the fact that I was the only person traveling with children on the plane; and they could see that my children were hungry, tired and crying. Only when I finally broke down due to frustration, did they pay heed to me. I was not prepared for an 8 hr delay in reaching Bristol. The ground staff took no initiative to make us comfortable. I had to ask for baby food and nappies. When I asked the staff for hot water for the baby, I was given water from a coffee vending machine. It is 2 weeks and my son is still suffering from a stomach infection. I had registered a complaint on their web site No: 3258181001, and they have not even bothered to respond.

Emotional harassment that we went through, and we were tired lugging everything with no help from the staff.

Stranded passengers were even not offered a cab or sleeping facilities or any other service. WE EVEN WERE NOT WARNED AHEAD OF TIME THAT WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE 6 HOURS BEFORE THE DEPARTURE HOUR IN THE AIRPORT. There was no help whatsoever from their side, even not for stranded passengers with small children or old people who had to climb over luggage and other people who waited for hours to reach the check in. Nobody even knew WHERE to check in. OF COURSE this is the liability of Air France. WE ARE NOT THE CLIENTS OF THE AIRPORT. WE ARE THE CLIENTS OF AIR FRANCE. Their arrogance of denying this liability forces me to take LEGAL STEPS against their company. I formally demand: a free ticket for us both on 28th or 29th Feb, compensation for the sufferings we had in the airport, compensation for the costs we had to make to go back to Gurgaon to our office and arrange for the night. We lost one complete working day (were in India for business) already. I want an indemnification for the lost time caused by them, I expect them to treat us as clients and not as cattle!

By the way, they need to try to improve their services, especially connecting flight services, otherwise they may have problems in getting dedicated customers in future like me.

Our ordeal did not end. On our return journey we again sent a request to Air France that on the 24th of January we should be served Asian Veg Meals (AVML) which according to their website does not contain any egg, but to our horror we were again served food containing egg on both New York Paris sector and Paris to India sector. My mother and children had to go without food on the both the flights. Our repeated complaints and protest fell to deaf ears, the staff was unresponsive and rude. On reaching Delhi we were told that our baggage had been left behind in Paris and would be delivered to us the next day. On receiving the baggage after more than 30 hours we found that three bags were badly torn and mishandled and some of the articles from the bags were missing .We have since that day tried to call Air France customer service, but every time our calls are put on hold. Our repeated emails to them have got no response. The whole episode besides hurting our religious sentiments has caused us great mental agony and has put us to a big monetary loss. The attitude of Air France seems to be highly unprofessional, unethical and arrogant. I am at the end of my wits how to deal with the whole issue.

I did not know that I had to make a claim immediately. I was not told by the Air France employee and I do not have past experience with it. When I called next day the customer service center also did not advice me of the same. They had wrong timings of the Boston airport baggage center as well in their database. These factors resulted in me in visiting the airport twice and not having the ability to get in touch with anybody. The tons of calls left with the Boston airport Air France baggage center were not returned. Eventually I filed a claim on Thursday which was four days after my arrival. Now the reply from Air France is you made a late claim and we are not responsible for your loss.

The Turin flight did not get off the ground until about 07:50.

After landing, by the time that I had waited for a bus to arrive to take us to the terminal, then waited for a second one to arrive (as I was not able to board the first) and then waited in the security queue for the shuttle to take me to terminal E and then travelled twice round the houses on the bus to get to terminal E, I arrived at the gate to find that the staff would not let me board.

Though perhaps not as bad as the experience reported by Ikela of E. Lansing MI (10/21/07), with whom I sympathise, many of the elements of her experience were present in mine (bad mannered staff, total lack of real understanding, suggestion that I myself may have been to blame for the late arrival at the gate for the flight to the US, an almost marxist sense of the division of labour applied to responsibility, mostly taken by nobody).

Above all I am perplexed at the way the airline ignores, totally ignores, the possible inconvenience caused to the passenger.

Through dogged insistence (it was hard work) I managed to get myself on a flight to Cincinnati leaving just 90 minutes later than my original flight: but this nonetheless translated into a total trip time of 21 hours rather than the planned 14.

I was told that my luggage would not be with me when I arrived and that I would receive it the day after. I am writing on the 26th October, I am still in California and my luggage has not yet been forwarded to me.

The airline does of course taken upon itself to complete its original task: that is transfer the passenger and his/her luggage to the original destination. But I would question the meaning of this task.

I bought a ticket to fly to California in 14 hours (Turin-Paris-SF) and arrive with my baggage: I did NOT buy a ticket to fly to California in 21 hours and arrive without my baggage. Therefore in some way I have been failed, as have all customers who undergo similar inconvenience, and I would want the airline to recognise this.

The airline does not, in fact, recognise this.
This is a sistemic fault.
The busy and somewhat rude staff at Charles de Gaulle Airport can only find a new itinerary, they can do nothing else!
The attentive staff at the Air France luggage office in the US (somewhere on the east coast) are not able to do anything except relocate and eventually forward missing luggage!

When I arrived in Paris (Charles de Gaul Airport), there was only an hour and 5 minutes to my Hong Kong flight. I had to transfer to another terminal for the Hong Kong flight. In a panic, I rushed to the transfer bus, where I and many other international passengers were kept waiting with no explanation. We reminded the gate keepers about our flight time so that they can hurry about bringing a bus but the answer we received was: you just wait?

The bus arrived, passengers rushed to it but the bus waited another five minutes so that it was jam-packed before it took off. By the time we arrived at the security check point, there were only 30 minutes to my flight. There were two long lines in front of the security check point because only two lines were open with personnel attending the scanners. The security check was quite thorough and therefore slow, so some passengers including me were anxious about missing their flights.

Again, we reminded the security personnel that we might miss our flights; the answer we received was: not my problem? After I came out of the security scan, one female personnel wanted to search me although there was no signal from the scanner. And I was trying to hurry by saying that my flight is about to leave; her response was: not my fault? By this time, there were 10 minutes to my flight, I rushed to the Gate, but it was the wrong gate, the gate number on my boarding pass was wrong, so I rushed to the correct one.

When I arrived to the right gate, there were five minutes to my flight. There were one male and four female (one of them Asian) gate agents. The Asian female agent approached to me, I showed her my passport and boarding pass, but she responded that it was finished, with a sympathizing manner. I could see that the gateway to the plane was still up and connected; so, I replied: I see the plane is still there and the gateway is up, why dont you just let me go??

The male agent approached to me right away and said: Madam it is not a train you know, we closed, you have to wait for the next flight, which is tonight at 11 oclock. That flight was 10 hours later.

It did not make sense to me at all; I tried to explain to him that we had to wait for the bus and for the security check, but he did not listen, did not even look at me. The Asian agent was looking sorry; other female agents did not even hear the problem because they were counting boarding passes. Another passenger, an elderly Dutch gentleman, came in a hurry, the agent told him they were closed, by showing more empathy.

Then, the male gate agent started talking with the other agents in French. I was really upset because they did not seem to care; so I said: The plane is still waiting, why cant we just go? But they did not even seem to hear me. Then, he turned to us and asked us to follow him so that he can re-issue a ticket for us. On the way there, I saw another passenger (Asian) rushing to the gate; I knew he was also on that flight because he was talking to people on the security check line about missing the flight to Hong Kong. But the female gate agents must have let him in because I have not seen him again for the rest of that day or on the next flight.

When we were being taken to a re-ticketing agent, I kept expressing my disappointment. The Dutch gentleman was so shocked that he had to take a pill to calm himself down. We passed through the security check again and went to one of the re-ticketing agents; the gate agent started talking to a dark-skinned re-ticketing agent in French. The re-ticketing agent looked at me and smiled. They chatted in French for about two minutes; let alone showing understanding, they seemed to be having fun with the situation. The re-ticketing agent asked for my passport, when they saw my passport their attitude became even worse; they looked at each other, talked in French again, with a confirmed manner and the gate agent left.

Then, the re-ticketing agent told me that my situation was different from the gentlemans situation because his flight was late but my flight was on time, and it was my fault that I missed the flight; he said it without checking anything on my flight. I could not believe what I was hearing. In fact, the Dutch gentleman was saying that he arrived an hour and half ago but still could not make it. Obviously, my being upset with the situation and expressing disappointment coupled with my national identity were good reasons for them to treat my case differently. I tried to tell him about the waiting, but he kept saying it is you madam, most people make it, so it is your fault, Air France is not responsible for your situation because Air France is never late.

I was not arguing that Air France was late, but trying to tell him that we were kept waiting so they should show a little understanding but he did not even listen. He served the Dutch gentleman with a new ticket and a voucher for sandwich and drinks in an apologetic manner; and he gave me a new ticket with an attitude and turned his head without any further explanation.

During this process, other customers were around as well (most probably French), they heard all conversations and kept looking at me. The Dutch gentleman and I waited ten hours that day, for the next flight at night. The lack of common sense, empathy, customer care, friendliness, courtesy, namely, those qualities necessary for sensible customer service on the part of the personnel of Charles de Gaul Airport as well as the personnel of Air France cost us several hours of waiting and physical and emotional distress.

This is the most outrageous experience I have ever had. My rights were violated; I was discriminated and quite honestly abused, humiliated and insulted by the personnel of Air France. Therefore, I wrote a complain letter addressing to the CEO of Air France, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, and demanded apology from the responsible personnel as well as compensation. I faxed this letter to several offices of Air France, including its customer service office and headquarters; also e-mailed it to several related personnel. However, to this date, I did not receive any response.

I am assuming that the CEO of a national flag carrier airline must have received the news from his personnel; otherwise, appropriate business, management and marketing would have been only joke terminologies for them.

I study consumer behavior. I know for a fact that consumers usually do not complain because they feel that it would not matter even if they did because they see no difference, no corrective action or apology from the wrongdoer; so the wrongdoer gets away with it most of the time. However, I also know for a fact that successful companies do take corrective action because they care about their consumer based brand equity. Turning such negative experiences into positive ones to contribute to their brand equity is in their hands. They can turn a dissatisfied customer into a loyal one with a positive word-of-mouth. ALL needed is CARE. But I guess Air France is not one of them; THEY JUST DONT CARE!

I waited until I started to see colors and hear echoes, and then pleaded with him again to call a doctor. He called, not a doctor, but a wheelchair attendant, who speeded me past the handbag control point, and onto the plane. I don't remember anything until I awoke somewhere over the Atlantic.

I contacted Air France, doing all they asked, and four months later was told that as a result of their investigation, they'd found that the attendant had asked me if I needed a doctor, and that I had refused help. Standing at the counter with me were several other passengers, who, seeing the attendant refuse my request for a doctor, had given me their business cards and said they'd testify if I needed them to. I offered the names of these passengers to Air France, but they refused to accept them.

I had to purchase tickets with a different airline on the spot at almost $10,000.

I had gone to Damascus to escort my elderly mother of 74 back home after her visit with her sister after an accidental fall. My mother does not get around so well; ever since her cancer, following various other mishaps, I've used special caution when traveling with her. Thus, I had requested a wheelchair when purchasing our airline tickets; however, it was to no avail. Upon our arrival at Charles De Gaulle airport, we were told that there was no wheelchair available and asked to wait at the gate for staff to locate one. After 20 minutes, I was told I had to leave the gate because it was closing, and directed towards the terminal's central authority.

Meanwhile, I and my mother, carrying all of our luggage, had to treck another 20 minutes, past some 20 odd gates to reach this destination without any help, concern, or apology. Finally, I received a wheelchair and proceeded to a bus to be transported to another terminal (literally another building), wherein I experienced severe harrassment and abuse by security officials, never having really entered Paris to begin with. I had already gone through this screening process in Damascus, and found a second one highly unneccessary; airport staff responded to my concerns and complaints with arrogance and attitude.

The more concern expressed by me for my mother's condition, the more harshly we were treated. After she broke down crying, and we almost missed our flight (the connecting time of which was two hours), we finally boarded the plane--just barely. Before boarding the plane to New York, at the gate, I attempted to resolve my complaint one final time. In response to my concerns, Air France management told me they should have charged me for a wheelchair because not everyone needs one. This insinuation implied that due to customer's needless demand for wheelchairs when they don't need them, one was not available. This was their apology. Needeless to say, I will never again fly Air France.

A month has passed, there was no letter so I called them again (maybe for the 10th time already). A guy on the phone told me that my claim hasn't been processed yet and assured me that he will take care of that, his name was Robert. Another month went bye and again no sign of life from Air France. I called them again (12/07/06), this time It was Sharonn who told me to call back in 2-3 days to make sure my claim would finnaly be handled. I called after 11 days (12/18/06), It was Virginia who told me that in order to get any reimbursment I should get another claim number with customer relation service.

It was the first time that any of the agents I spoke with mentioned something like that. After I insisted she generated this number for me and asked for two weeks to be processed, I generously accepted the offer. After 3 weeks (01/10/07) I called them again because there was still no letter with their offer for reimbursment in my mailbox. They told me that they need 3-4 weeks to process this and that I should be a little more patient. I don't mind the crib and 150 Euros and I understand that bags can be lost in long distance busy flights, what really bothers me is the attitude and arrogance of their personel.

I am getting inclined to the idea that this is a kind of official Air France policy towards their customers. I can't find any other explanation for such behaviour. I am missing the bag since September and they need 3-4 weeks to process the claim. I would like to know how this process is going on. Is there a special committee who meditate on my lost bag or they are trying to clone it, I have no idea. It must be a really delicate and demanding task.

È

We've been married for 18 years and have never left our children alone at home. Looking forward to our "honeymoon" and French experience we boarded Air France 0995 in JHB. From the start the reception was cold and even hostile, seats were extremely cramped (even less space than the internal BA flight from CT), and the food horrific! On arrival at CDG, the experience worsened ... after standing in a queue for more than an hour, we were duly informed that all connecting flights from CDG to Nice were full and that we had to find our way to Orly.

On arrival at Orly we once again experienced the "AF welcome"! To be expected, we arrived at Nice to be informed that our baggage have been delayed, and our "torture" continued with the interrogation by the baggage "(in)(con)sultant". Our stay in France was fantastic and we put our bad experiences with AF behind us. I can truly say that France, especially Provance and the VAR is an experience not to be missed. 12 days of bliss passed way too fast and it was time to return home on AF.

Being an optimist, I hoped for a better treatment by AF. This hope was dashed on book-in at Nice airport. We were overweight by 20kg (French food and wine is truly superb) and had to pay 30 Euro per kg. By the way the weight limit is exactly 20 kg per person (no leeway), and not 23kg's (BA, SAA, and other reputable airlines). The baggage allowance for business class is 30 kg's and I enquired about upgrading the 2 of us ... the price quoted for the upgrade ... R29880-00 per person! Remember this is one way to JHB PER PERSON!!! In addition we were told to book our bags all the way to Cape Town, and had to pay an additional 80 euro for the excess baggage for this leg on BA.

Anyway, we found our way to CDG from Nice, booked onto AF 0992 to JHB .... on a flight with more than 50 seats EMPTY. I understand the penalty for excess baggage, but take offence to being "ripped" for 680 Euros on an empty flight!!! On arrival at JHB we were told to collect our baggage ... the "promised book in to CT ... NOT TRUE!!! We paid the 80 euros .... FOR NOTHING!!!!! What a pleasure Booking into BA from JHB to CT. By the way ... no charge for the excess baggage! I wonder if BA will ever receive the 80 euro from AF?

Only one problem ...BA mislaid our baggage, and we were re-united with our prized and now very expensive pates and wine 2 days later. Be warned ... do not travel AF, and if you do, prepare yourself for a long and tiring trip, with no one to complain to!!! I'm not sure if I feel any better by having written and posted this note in cyberspace ... perhaps I need to try alternative therapy and open my bottle of Chablis now. By the way, should any AF employee ever read this, I'll be more than willing to recount our story with some added free advice to improve "service".

Due to reasons unknown to us his connecting flight from France to Johannesburg was cancelled and he was told he would fly on a later flight that night, as the evening grew hiewas then advised that he would be taken to a hotel and only be on a flight the next day. When he tried to get help and explain he had a funeral to attend his was told that he wasn’t the only passenger and just sit down and be quiet.

As a result of this my brother missed the funeral and was shown no compassion by your staff. Later that week when we were checking our return details we realised we had booked different flights which were within 1 hour of each other! So we phoned Air France in Santon to try change our flight in order to travel together. I first spoke to a young woman called Sinita who was extremely rude to me and said, No I won't change your ticket as it's nonchangeable yet in the small print of my ticket it states that for a fee my ticket is changeable.

My brother tried to explain the situation and asked if she could try to help us due to our situation and maybe have a bit of companion… Sinita asked my brother who had died. When he said my Aunt, she replied it’s only your Aunt who’s dead not your mother. He asked to speak to a manager but she refused telling him he could only speak to her and that she would not let him, he put the phone down. I called back and again this same women was rude and unreasonable, she told me that she would not let my brother speak to a manager and she would let me either. I asked her why and she replied with “Because I don’t want to”.

Fair enough if this is the way your agents deal with clients on the phone I can see in the future your company will fail.

Despite three letters and numerous phone calls, no progress was made. Next, my baggage was missing on arrival again!. After filling out all the necessary paperwork, I realized I would be late for my appointment. The service rep assured me that Air France would cover the cost of a taxi. I submitted the paperwork appropriately, but have been denied. I have sent three letters now. What is most infuriating is they never explain why they refuse my request. Their baggage services seem a criminal enterprise.

The baby carriage was worth about $200. The taxi was 23 euros. The first incident hampered my holidays tremendously. The letters and phone calls have taken hours of my personal time.

Finally they determined that my troubles were worth only $70, what I laid out to get by for 2 1/2 days. I think a lot differently and am considering litigation. If you accept their check, you waive rights to litigation. It's lying in my desk drawer.

We ended up having to pay for a hotel stay in Rome because our plans were to arrive in Rome then take a train to Florence where we had a hotel reserved (and paid). The flight delay ended up costing us a hotel stay in Rome and a loss of the preplanned stay in Florence.

If it's ok when your luggage is 2-5 days late, fly AirFrance. If you think that safety is guaranteed when a passenger is left ALONE with a SHOTGUN and about 100 rounds of amunition in CDG baggage-handling area, fly AirFrance. This is the experienve of one flight from BCN to MIA via CDG.