Air France / Charles De Gaulle

RachelChant

Hi, I've literally just signed up because I need some advice on an issue. I do apologise if I have posted this in the wrong section or violated any rules; if there are moderators on this site please let me know if I need to delete / move my post accordingly.

Okay, so, a few weeks ago my mother and I were in Barcelona and our connection flights were in Amsterdam on the way over (incredible airport) and Charles De Gaulle on the way home (I would pay any amount of money to avoid this airport for the rest of my life).

Our connecting flight did not connect which Air France have said it was due to "late arrival of incoming flight which in turn was delayed due to restrictions put forward by the Air Traffic Control (ATC). Hence, there was insufficient time for you to make your connection"

This was after using the resolver app to make a claim as we missed our flight and arrived home 3 hours later (or 4 hours, I get confused with time difference).

When we were on the plane getting ready to land at CDG one of the cabin crew came up with a map and said we had about 20-30 minutes to get to our connecting flight and pointed where we needed to go. As soon as we landed we pretty much ran off the plane and when we entered the airport we were surrounded in a crowd of people who were all stuck because there was a barrier and some CDG staff were only allowing people who had NO connections to go further. So we all had to wait, but we got no explanation for this. The time went by, maybe 10 minutes in this crowd and then suddenly the barrier disappeared and we were let through. Everyone was scuttling to the next queue which again was large and they were making no exceptions for people with extremely short connection times. Once we got through one security desk we then had to run to the next check point which was another security desk and before we entered the queue we had to show our boarding passes and whilst doing this I asked if we were going to miss our flight and I was hoping the CDG staff checking the pass would realise we had about 5 minutes to board and help us get through but no he said "yes probably" and laughed and showed us off in the queue without any explanations or help. This final queue was a joke, about 10 desks where staff could be checking people through but no there was only 2 people there and a large crowd of people all needing to board planes ranging from 5 minutes to 30 minutes. The staff were horrible, rude and so incredibly unhelpful. We finally got through the last check point and ran to our gate hoping that somehow the plane would be there and of course it wasn't. We were checked on to the next available flight which was in 3 hours and we got 8 euros each which barely buys a bottle of water and a bag of crisps! We had to entertain ourselves in one the worst airports I have ever experienced. CDG are not capable of running an airport, since returning home I've heard nothing but complaints about them from friends and co-workers.

I believe if CDG had been a helpful and well-run airport we could have easily made our connecting flight but we were dismissed, left to figure things out alone and did not feel like wanted customers.

My compensation claim was denied because of the explanation I copy and pasted earlier. I was just curious, is this really the end of the line?

Any real interest would be appreciated.

Thank you

Caz3121

not sure how late your inbound flight to Paris was or how long a connection time you had allowed but from your post...
BCN-CDG flight had a delay which was stated as caused by ATC
AF at CDG closes the gate 20 minutes before departure and due to delay and the fact that CDG is an awful airport the connecting flight meant the connection was missed
A refreshment voucher and a later flight were provided

If the reason for the inbound delay was ATC then no compensation is due
It is worth checking your flight numbers on EUClaim (with the connecting flight and the replacement flight details) to see if they agree that this was not within the airlines control...if they agree then case closed. If they do not agree then have a read of Vauban's guide re court process