As the weather in Europe gets worse and worse, every year I look for an escape from these short rainy days. Last year it was Australia, this year I chose Chile as I wanted for years to come here to experience the beauty of their national parks.
First of all, I booked Air France La Premiére error from IST to GRU but because of their downgrade to the economy and not responding to the Final Demand letter I canceled and looked elsewhere. SWISS offered that time great price between Europe and SCL from CDG at the price of 1900 USD per person in business class so I decided to book their routing CDG - ZRH - GRU - SCL with the last leg operated by Avianca Brasil. After a few weeks, Avianca changed their aircraft from A330 to A320 with no business class. That was my luck. As this change happened, I was able to change free of charge my ticket to the dream journey with lovely aircrafts which I will be reporting in next days/weeks. It cost me only a lot of time on the line and asking agents again and again for change possibilities.
Hope you will enjoy!
CDG Airport
For those of you who traveled through this shity airport, this is known as one of the least comfortable. Connections are long with bus transfers, terminal changes, it is crowded, feels old…but the airfares from here are well known…
Check-in with Air Canada was smooth as usual. I made this flight a few months ago and the baggage check-in lines were also empty so this seems working very efficiently.
Then we came to the Security line and everything changed. I experienced the worst behavior of employees as ever seen. We used No. 1 line and there was a black man who seemed to be retarded. Everybody stood in the line and waited for their baggage as he checked most of them. But in what way! He opened every, took everything outside and checked it separately. He showed every my sock and others to everyone. It was more stressing than SSSS in the US and it took a while. I and my partner were very unhappy and it ruined our first impressions from our dream holiday. They should pack all his things and send him back to Africa!
Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge CDG T2
There is no much to say. The lounge has no tarmac view, employees are very kind and nice, there are no showers, food is very limited. In my opinion, this is the oldest and most overlooked lounge in Air Canada network. I think it needs improvement. But for a short wait before delayed aircraft is prepared it was fine.
AC881
Upon boarding our superb Dreamliner the stress was over. The cabin feels so spacious, clean and new! The cabin crew made their way to us introducing themselves, talking to us by our names. Meal orders were taken and with 40 minutes delay after a glass of champagne, we were able to leave this bloody city.
I took only one picture of the menu as everyone is able to find their menu on AC website 2 weeks ahead of their journey. I find this very nice!
The service started immediately after take off. Warm nuts and champagne for me. I asked also for the signature cocktail but that was not available as they did not have all the ingredients.
I hate foie-gras so I really did not enjoy the appetizer. But after that I have to admit that the food started to be delicious to my taste!
Sorry, but the main course was so good that I forgot to take a picture :D
After that, they rolled out the cheese trolley which I really liked. Desert wines and liquors were available.
And it all ended with superb cake and fresh fruits
Then we enjoyed a perfectly smooth flight across the Atlantic with a little-limited movies selection to my taste.
The prelanding meal was served exactly 90 minutes prior to landing. It was great but maybe a little small? But sufficient if your journey continues internationally and you are able to access their superb Suites Lounge!
It's too bad you use so much offensive language and even borderline racism in this review because it has nice pics. I would have liked to share this report on our social media, but not in its current state. I suggest you clean up the language. Also, since this site started out as a French site, trashing CDG and referring to Paris as that "bloody city"
Also, looks like you need to update the aircraft type from 77W to 789.
I agree with KévinDC.
Paris CDG may have its weaknesses, even for us French, whether we depart from or in simple transit. But I won't go that far...
Having said that, the inflight experience helped to forget that. That's a good product AC shows here.
I am sorry guys you see it this way. That experience frustrated me and I described it as it was. I never hide anything and I am not interested in racism. He was black idiot, if it was Mongolian woman, I would write it.
It's the "send him back to Africa part" that sounds racist. It's pretty blatant, actually and in very poor taste. We reserve the right to delete reports for offensive language. I'd rather not as it's otherwise a nice report, but as I've said, please clean up the language, otherwise I will. I'm being more than fair here.
While the report is pretty nice and detailed, I am a bit offended by the language itself. You could have called him an idiot, but you had to add that word ''black'' to it and to get back to your country
But next to that, I think CDG is a complete mess and I definitely try to avoid any lay-over over there with less than 3 hours of transit times.