The Reality of Air France Business Class

[Music] france is in the air today on non-stop dan we are flying one of europe's most debated airlines some people love them some people hate them and then there's me who's flown them a dozen times and still haven't fully made my mind up so let's make today the conclusive test as we try the latest business class from air france on their flagship airbus e350 from paris to boston is air france tashik or treblic and also why did they introduce a worse business class seat on their a350s let's find out shall we i'm non-stop dan a half sweet and half american who's been obsessed with airplanes for as long as i can remember over the past seven years i've flown 150 different airlines virtually all self-funded non-stop dan is all about trying to get as much value as possible with my miles or when those are running low my money and then spreading the word so you guys get optimal value and can enjoy your travels to the max and hopefully enjoy my geeky videos along the way there is one thing all frequent flyers love about air france and klm namely their loyalty program not because of the loyalty benefits but because of their redemption rates a lot of the time you can get long-haul business class flights under their so-called monthly promo awards for between 30 and 40 000 points one way between europe and the us which is mind-blowingly cheap in my case i booked one of these promos just a week before taking my flight from gothenburg sweden to boston for 39 750 miles and 298 dollars in taxes that's a great deal especially considering you can now get 75 000 points as to sign a bonus for a limited time on the rewarding capital one venture card that's basically enough for a round-trip business class ticket to europe think about that i can't be the only person who books a 6 a.m flight and then panics the night before and feels major regret that was me as i set my alarm for 4 30 am to depart gothenburg on the morning flight down to paris before i knew it i was hoping on to our little halp embryo 190. the flight down to paris went by quickly and was rather uneventful besides breakfast which consisted of two mini baguettes with cheese with a side of croissants not ideal if you're trying to be healthy in any way but who cares we eventually touched down at charles gold i really want to love this airport but my goodness is transferring here a nightmare basically all hulp flights and select air france flights operate out of terminal 2g it's hilarious they call this terminal 2 because it took us 15 minutes to taxi there after landing at which point we had to walk 15 minutes through the terminal that resembles a literal shed in order to board a bus which took us to the real terminal 2 which took another 15 minutes made it to paris once in terminal 2f which is the schengen part of the terminal things improved considerably the highlight is supposedly the brand new france salon which opened in late 2021 even though my connection was departing from terminal 2e which is far from 2f i decided to check this lounge out since i had almost 5 hours to kill admittedly i was there on a sunny day but upon entering i was really blown away by the amount of light in this lounge it spans two floors with multiple seating options and buffets all with striking views of air france's airbus only short haul fleet in case you couldn't get enough of baguettes and croissants on board their friends make sure you won't get french bread fomo here besides that there's a small selection of cheese and cold cuts and a rather boring looking fruit salad not the most inspiring breakfast spread for a brand new flagship lounge if you ask me i have to say that i do like this lounge though at 11 o'clock the food offering changes to lunch at which point the selection improves but it still wasn't that great there are a bunch of lovely features that elevate this lounge specifically showers semi-private nap rooms which are amazing after an early morning flight and best of all for a business class lounge free spot treatments in partnership with clarence for some reason they only offer facials which seems like a strange thing to do at an airport especially with covert and monkey parks lingering around so i feel like a neck and shoulder massage would make more sense in any case who could say no to a free facial they only had one masseuse at work that day and given that each treatment was 20 minutes they only had capacity to do three per hour needless to say the treatment was so relaxing what a wonderful way to spend your layover by the time i left the fg8 lounge it had gotten a lot more crowded so i've been a youtuber all through high school through college and at this point how to know you've become really up during that whole massage which was wonderful all i could think of was oh i should be recording this why didn't i set up a time lapse why didn't i set up a camera and i was so frustrated and i was like just chill enjoy it all non-schengen air france flights depart from terminal 2 e you first clear passport control and then head to either gates k l or m that's right klm my flight was departing from m gates and that required i literally can't believe i have to take another bus another bus this is undoubtedly the worst major airport in europe for most connections it's so unfortunate because once you get to the m gates it's quite a nice place with loads of stores and far smaller crowds there's another air france lounge here so i figured i'd check it out given that my last time there was in 2017. this lounge feels noticeably older than the 2f lounge but it's not bad it has loads of natural light and a similar buffet along with a clarence spa and showers i grabbed a tiny bite to eat and worked until it was finally time to board my flight to boston the airbus a350 900 is such a stunning aircraft and air france will one day be a large operator of the type so far they have 17 in their fleet and they have another 21 on order although some future deliveries will feature a first-class cabin and an updated business class my aircraft was delivered less than three months before my flight on this beautiful a350 there are 34 business class seats spread across 9 rows in a 1-2-1 layout these seats are similar in layout to what you'll find in united polaris or ll business class which is to say they're not the most cutting edge but certainly not bad everyone has direct aisle access with seats alternating between being closer to the windows and closer to the aisles in the center the even numbered rows are so called honeymoon seats where you can sit close to your travel companion while the odd numbered rows are closer to well no one the even numbered window seats are far superior to the odd numbered ones since they are closer to the window and offer more privacy so if you can do as dan does and choose one of these in my case ate lima as we boarded it turned out the aircraft wasn't ready so we all waited for 20 minutes in the jet way before eventually getting on board the air france a350 cabin is incredibly sleek and i love the colors however it turns out the colors were a huge mistake as you'll see shortly now here you see how dramatic the difference between the even and odd numbered seats are the odd numbered rows can barely see out the windows while the even numbered rows are infinitely better just as in my last review of ll here is my seat [Music] let's have a look around starting right ahead with a tray table which pops out like this above it is a usb charging port and the entertainment screen to the right are my two windows which have electronic window blinds love it to the left to the left we have our seat controls which are pretty limited in terms of customization we also have a panel with a few more controls and a reading light the best part is this massive locker which houses a remote the headphones and a bottle of water but you can fit a lot in here which is great when you travel heavy like me there's also a power port under that further out there's a privacy partition which isn't even necessary since this configuration is so private already overall this is an excellent seat i prefer the reverse herringbone on their triple seven but this is definitely not a bad second option considering it was originally intended for their now disassembled low cost subsidiary june and the privacy really couldn't get any better without adding a door speaking of incredible privacy there is no better way to keep your information and identity private than with today's video sponsor nordvpn they have a new feature called threat protection that once installed blocks trackers annoying ads and malware that's hidden online waiting for you to fall into its trap of course you also get their award-winning fastest vpn on the planet which lets you connect to dozens of countries to shield your browsing or to access entertainment libraries that are not available in your current location best of all you guys save a huge amount on nordvpn when signing up at nordvpn.com and you get a special gift if you sign up there too besides it doesn't hurt to try nordvpn on your next trip since they have a 30 day money back guarantee so click that link at the top of the description as i was mentioning earlier the color palette looks pretty but oh boy whoever chooses white for air france is really doing them dirty this plane is three months old but judging by all the scratches around the seat you'd think it was at least three years old more like 10 years old to be honest on another note i could immediately tell this would be a very reserved crew as they simply held things out to you or if they were feeling talkative they'd say miss hand things out to you the pre-departure beverages came around with the choice of champagne or orange juice lufthan's equality orange juice i should add and shortly thereafter they handed out scorching hot towels and i appreciate them so much these days boarding it started an hour before departure so eventually i needed to use the bathroom we're still on the ground at this point so i got to check it out and it was relatively clean but as you can see not the most spacious the clarence toiletries are nice though when i got back to the seat i thought wait a damn minute where is this fresh air coming from oh wow there's a catering truck outside suddenly they were loading all types of meals both into business class and economy at 1 30 p.m which was our departure time what on earth then the cargo door opens again and they start loading more bins that'll end up taking 30 minutes and then we had another 20 minute taxi out to brussels oh sorry i mean the northern runways of child de gaulle i have to say the highlight of my entire air france experience and what will undoubtedly be the most memorable part of this is the moment i saw a fox on the taxiway as we prepared to depart how adorable as always takeoff presents a unique opportunity for my subscribers in this case a reminder to enter my biggest self-funded giveaway ever where one lucky viewer can win a round-trip ticket to or from the middle east in qatar airways business class so hit that subscribe button now and enter at the link in my description or the pinned comment looking at this beautiful wing makes me want to watch our a350 from a different perspective and luckily that's possible because air france has onboard cameras she is a stunner other than the camera which is obviously the superior form of entertainment there are roughly 250 movies and 55 shows to choose from while the movie selection isn't bad the tv show sadly had at most three episodes per show if you're gonna watch something good you can use the onboard noise cancelling headphones provided or if you're going to watch the big bang theory you're better off without a headphone so you don't need to endure those jokes what's more impressive is the wi-fi or in the words of the crew the wifi air france has the same wi-fi as klm offering a streaming pass of high-speed wi-fi for 30 euros and a regular speed wi-fi pass for 18. not bad pricing and i love having the option of choosing speeds along with free messaging of course as far as business class beds go it's still relatively spacious but their reverse herringbone is still preferable the bedding is passiq but it does the job sadly the cabin temperature was a little too hot for sleeping since there were no individual air vents but then again there were so many usb ports that a usb fan could easily remedy that we were lucky to get menus on this fight which isn't something you can take for granted anymore and the menu was huge the bigger the better when it comes to menus the selection wasn't quite as huge but offering four mains is great none of them sound especially appealing in my opinion but since we are flying a french airline understandably there aren't any mexican thai or even middle eastern options on the menu couscous is the closest we'll get i guess the drink menu was heavily focused on alcohol so the soft drinks were sadly neglected i even asked a crew member what soft drinks they had and she replied wine non-jokingly by the way about an hour after takeoff these cheesy crackers were served along with the second most popular soft drink on air france still water which is right behind sparkling water and popularity shortly thereafter they came by with trolleys of appetizers for some reason the crew seemed really confused about most things on this flight i told them i'd ordered a vegan meal and proceeded to debate with each other about the airline code for vegan meals because they didn't know if mine was loaded the appetizer arrived all on one tray accompanied by this wonderfully opulent salad which everyone got by the way lucky us the actual dishes were grilled vegetables and silken tofu marinated in seaweed which i guess was supposed to be sort of a foie gras substitute these dishes actually tasted a lot better than they looked the main course as has often been the case lately lacked any form of protein but tasted good a very similar meal to what i'd expect on klm ironically finally it was time for dessert and they offered me this stunning little dessert plate how delicious does this look the other options were vanilla or strawberry sorbet so i indulged in the latter which was served in a cup which i can only imagine was intended for chihuahuas on a diet [Music] despite the so far average experience i continued working and really enjoyed the privacy of the seat as we cruised over the atlantic there is one thing i haven't shown you guys yet one of my favorite and absolutely least significant things on board the amenity kit air france offers these nice looking and very well stocked amenity kits with pretty much everything you could need apart from a packet of tissues merci for a solid 8 out of 10 amenity kit air france i spent the rest of the flight watching westworld on my phone my friends have been nagging me to watch it for years so i downloaded it before the flight and also took a 90 minute nap where i finally managed to sleep like a baby before i knew it we were an hour out of boston and the pre-arrival service was starting this time the crew seemed to be in a slightly better mood than before so we had a little chat this meal was an assortment of cards with another infamous grilled vegetable sandwich the new industry favorite i think as you could expect with the french this was the best on board sandwich i've ever had at least there was also an enormous side bowl of blueberry soy yogurt which was a nice surprise along with an english muffin strange makes of lunch and breakfast foods but i liked it seven hours really do fly by in business class and in what felt like no time we were all descending into boston i think the last time i was here was in 2016 so it's about time to get a refresh on logan airport now what is the problem with air france business class as you can tell it's perfectly summed up in one word to me it just isn't remarkable in any way which is such a shame because air france has so much potential their marketing is great and their seats are great but everything else feels distinctly lackluster which is a shame given how incredible their first class product is there's so much room to add more personality and nice luxurious touches to the flight without making it much costlier for the airline with that thank you so much for watching and until i see you next time fly safe my friends [Music] you

Channel: Nonstop Dan

Views: 724,450

Keywords: air france, business class, nonstop dan, flight review

Id: Z7gYuLP0XVA

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 18 2022