Did I complain about US aviation recently? Well, in the light of today's experience I have to take that back.
What everyone tells about Airport Charles De Gaulle and the Air France ground personnel is not true. It isn't that bad. It is much worse.
I missed my connection flight to Newark. The flight from Nürnberg was delayed by thirty minutes, I probably would have made it if they would have told us that there was a special bus shuttle from the flight field to the terminal, but the lady just looked shortly into the bus, mumbled something in an incomprehensible English and left the bus. So I went to the arrival terminal, was directed to the bus shuttle to terminal 2E, got through security and was at what I thought was the bus to the plane.
In fact, that wasn't the actual gate but just a bus station, and the bus drove 20 minutes to a shack on the other side of the airport, where the actual gate 2E80 is located. And when I arrived there, they told me that they just had closed the door.
Oh great. So I took the bus back to the terminal building and tried to Air France customer service. Everyone is very friendly and sends you politely — somewhere, but not where you wanted to go. Got through the personnel exit of the security check (without any trouble) and ended up at AF ticketing after asking three more associates. Waited there 10 minutes after which the nice lady told me politely to go to customer service, she cannot transfer my flight. Of course, she sent me to check-in, but the queue manager there directed me to customer service.
A couple of people already waiting there, and only two desks attended. Twenty minutes later I actually was able to ask for the transfer. The lady at the desk even found a connection within only 15 minutes, but needed additional 45 minutes to actually transfer my flight. But at least she booked me on a connection for the same day. Unlike those poor folks with partner flight tickets. They had to stay a night, but at least they got a hotel voucher...
When I got to passport control, I've had a deja-vu. Like in Denver, 500 people waiting, only four stations open. And no, they don't just record the passport number, they do a complete scan of every passport. An elderly American lady ask the queue manager in perfect French if there was a way to accelerate it. She translated his answer to: "every flight is late anyway." — "I think he wants to say that he doesn't give a damn", I remarked and she answered wearily: "Yes, apparently."
And thus, I was already late when approaching the railway to terminal 2E67. And of course, the train just left, causing me to lose another five minutes. And finally, a very, very slow security check at the concourse. So, I arrived 10 minutes after boarding started and... found myself in a very long queue that moved only very slowly. They replaced almost all boarding cards with new ones and had another baggage and body check. The fourth time for the trip. Anyway, I actually got into the plane. And sat there additional 90 minutes, waiting for late arrivals. Why the fuck do they wait for other people, but not for me?!
Another observation at CDG: they send everyone, even French people, into the wrong direction, they never tell you the whole story. But Americans get a special treatment: while waiting for my transfer to the new connection, the lady at the counter sent numerous Americans to ticketing — right were they came from. Back and forth, back and forth. I think the folks at CDG are incredibly incompetent (even if their booking system sucks), but irritating customers quite obviously on purpose is a very, very bad business strategy. And I have to say, though I'm a service person myself and I know that the person behind the desk usually isn't the one to blame, but this time I had to get quite insistent. And I think the sarcasm I showed at some points was understood very well.
I mean, yes, it can happen that one misses a connection. Happens all the time. But this amount of chaos, incompetence and "not my problem" attitude, behind a friendly mask even, is extremely irritating. The poor attempts at increasing security, which don't help but just make everything slower, doesn't help either.
And what a difference the flight makes. The most friendly flight attendants I've ever experienced on a flight (sorry, Lufthansa, but you folks are still quite close) and the food is just excellent and they have a per-seat entertainment system on intercontinental flights. Very pleasant ride so far. Why can't the ground crew be as competent as the flight crew?
Unfortunately, I cannot sleep in the seats and I have the AC blowing cold air at my head all the time. Sigh.
Comments
stickmaker.livejournal.com 16 years, 9 months ago
I've only flown out of France once - yes, from CDG - and my experience with that only reinforced my resolve never to visit the country again.
A fellow American was fretting because they insisted on X-Raying his 35mm film rolls, IIRC the product of a Summer Grad Student program. There had been some sort of recent scare (this was Summer 1984) and they would not visually inspect them. I was also carrying a considerable amount of 35mm film, but had the advantage of having read up on the situation before my trip. I assured him that carry-on luggage scanners rarely harmed even sensitive film, unless they were seriously out of adjustment, and that was rare.
The attendant stiffened, and stated flatly "That would never happen in France!"
My film came out all right; I hope his did.
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