Air France customer service

whatsyourfavouritecheese

Sounding out the forum here. 

My family and I flew Air France to Abu Dhabi in April from LHR via Paris Charles de Gaulle. Slight delay on the way out (2 hrs), Air France gave us some vouchers (11 euro each) in CDG for food to apologise and make up for it. Nice bonus.

On the way back, our Weds 9am flight from Abu Dhabi was changed to a Thursday 3am flight from Dubai. This also stretched our stopover from 90 mins to 5.5 hrs. We were notified by email at 10pm the evening before we flew. 

I had to return a hire car to AUH and get a taxi back to our hotel in lieu of using it as our means of getting back to the airport. The hotel kindly let us stay and use their facilities (Radisson Blu Abu Dhabi Corniche - highly recommended). We obviously had to feed everyone, and organise a taxi to Dubai since Air France was no help here.

Customer service at Air France was dire. We'd paid to reserve seats together which they lost, then it took about an hour on the phone to get this sorted, along with the additional baggage.

Upon check in we were told we'd not paid for baggage. Outright told we were lying despite us having written proof. Check in manager got the Air France Duty Manager to come down, who resolved it but refused to even look at us. 

In CDG checked at the customer service desk if they'd do any food vouchers or anything due to the additional layover, but they stated this should have been done in Dubai. Clearly it wasn't. Whilst this would have been a bonus, it felt a bit odd that they'd done it for a 2 hr delay but were happy to ignore a 4 hour delay (the difference in layover time between our originally booked and actual flights).

Claimed under UK law and submitted a claim, including expenses for travel and subsistence. It included my taxi back to the hotel, and food in CDG (about 40 euro in total). Air France queried 2 receipts which were only credit card slips, but the hotel emailed me a detailed invoice covering those which I submitted to Air France.

Air France has agreed to pay out but under EU law so 600 euro per passenger, which is £512, not the £520 under UK law. £8 difference per passenger is £48 for the six of us. And I'm 90% sure that as the flight ended in the UK it is covered under the UK legislation.

They've also only paid 2/3 of the claimed expenses but haven't explained which they've rejected or why. 

The main issue I have with them is that they have just been awful to deal with. Their complaints portal is a black hole, into which I am able to submit updates but never hear anything. Emails go unanswered, and the whole attitude of not caring about the passengers has wound me up. I lost a day's work, and there was a whole load of knock on impacts including having 4 young kids on an unplanned overnight flight (!).

My question is... Whilst they've compensated us, and I'm not bemoaning the money, it feels like they've got away with the bare minimum, and I'd happily make enough of a nuisance of myself to get the rest of the money out of them. Should I? Actually, second question, how?

TadleyBaggie

whatsyourfavouritecheese said:

Sounding out the forum here. TL:DR - Don't fly Air France.

Against forum rules:

Active boycotting

We appreciate emotions can run high should you experience poor service from companies, but we cannot accept active calls to boycott organisations as we are unable to verify the service you received.

whatsyourfavouritecheese

TadleyBaggie said:

whatsyourfavouritecheese said:

Sounding out the forum here. TL:DR - Don't fly Air France.

Against forum rules:

Active boycotting

We appreciate emotions can run high should you experience poor service from companies, but we cannot accept active calls to boycott organisations as we are unable to verify the service you received.

Noted, and edited.

eskbanker

whatsyourfavouritecheese said:

My question is... Whilst they've compensated us, and I'm not bemoaning the money, it feels like they've got away with the bare minimum, and I'd happily make enough of a nuisance of myself to get the rest of the money out of them. Should I? Actually, second question, how?

Up to you whether or not there's sufficient juice to warrant the amount of effort involved in squeezing it out of them, but perhaps worth sharing details of the costs you claimed for and what they appear to have settled, as it may be that some are outside the scope of the legislation - for example, I'm not sure that moving you from a shorter to a longer layover actually obliges them to feed you there?

I can understand the frustration with their attitude and lack of contact, but that doesn't necessarily translate into more cash, and likewise losing a day's work and flying overnight with kids aren't things that can realistically be claimed from the airline, so if they've paid "the bare minimum" then (by definition) you may not actually have any legal right to any more?

mdann52

UK and EU law run alongside eachother. The UK regs have a carveout if it's a foreign operator who compensates you according to their local regulations. Given it's only £8, and the law applying UK261 to EU carriers has never been tested, it might be better to leave the compensation side of things. 

It's probably covered by UK regulations, but it's definitely covered by EU regulations. If the delay was on the Non-EU to EU leg, as opposed to the EU-UK leg, then the EU regs are probably the correct ones.

DullGreyGuy

Found Air France terrible to deal with... flight for Xmas was cancelled in anticipation of bad weather but on the day the weather was fine. By pure coincidence 2 friends were on the same flight connecting through CDG. Customer Service desk didnt open until 2 hours after the flight left, we got to the desk first. Friends were rushed though to catch the next flight, we were told the same would happen to us but the guy disappeared off. Came back 10 minutes later to say someone else had taken out seats so best they could do was now mid January. Asked where he'd gone he said he was saying goodbye to a colleague.

The woman now next was having a similar time scale offered to us was really distressed as she was saying her visa ran out before then and got a very Gaelic shrug from the customer service agent

Eventually they agreed to send us out 2 days later with an overnight layover at our expense in CDG and the flight from CDG being Business. On the flight Mrs's meal contained a spud with a sticker still on it. 

They claimed a weather exemption from EU261, offered £75 voucher for the guy abandoning our rebooking to speak to a friend resulting in losing 2 days and incurring hotel/cab costs but circa £600 for a sticker on a spud. 

whatsyourfavouritecheese

Up to you whether or not there's sufficient juice to warrant the amount of effort involved in squeezing it out of them, but perhaps worth sharing details of the costs you claimed for and what they appear to have settled, as it may be that some are outside the scope of the legislation - for example, I'm not sure that moving you from a shorter to a longer layover actually obliges them to feed you there?

I can understand the frustration with their attitude and lack of contact, but that doesn't necessarily translate into more cash, and likewise losing a day's work and flying overnight with kids aren't things that can realistically be claimed from the airline, so if they've paid "the bare minimum" then (by definition) you may not actually have any legal right to any more?

By bare minimum I mean things like paying 600 euro instead of £520 etc which feels like basic compliance with...something, but not the UK law I think applies. But my gripe is more the black hole and lack of justification of withholding payment.

Claimed items were:

AED 1271.50	for meals and transport within the UAE
€ 54.05	for additional refreshments in France
£6.85	for phone calls to Air France

I thought they might reject the refreshments in France, but figured it was worth a shot. Everything else falls well within my definition of reasonable expenses - it's pretty basic food and drink (no alcohol) for a full day. We were delayed 21 hours.

What they've paid covers (roughly) the taxi to Dubai airport, and our evening meal (which was a bargain at £63ish for 6). But there is no breakdown of what has been paid vs rejected. That's my main issue.