air france 777-200LR Business Class

Continuing with the airplane posts here, I ended up flying one of Air France’s older planes from Beijing to Paris (then on to Biarritz). I don’t mean to sound stuck up, but I am about to sound stuck up. It sucked.

First of all, I barely made my flight. Somehow, I slept through my alarm and only woke up to my genius girlfriend pinging my iPhone. With 2 hours until boarding, and an hour away from the airport, and still with some packing to do, I somehow, someway threw everything together and was the LAST person to check in at the airport. I had literally negative five minutes to see the lounge, but I was in desperate need of a shower before boarding my 11 hour flight to Paris. So I showered up quickly and made my way to the gate.

The seat that Air France somehow still offers on this flight is horrible. Narrow, no privacy, shit entertainment and television screen. Everything is subpar when it comes to hard product. I know that they have phased out of these seats, but it should have been done a decade ago. I actually had originally been on one of their newer planes but I just had to get out of Beijing a couple days earlier to see my girlfriend. Sacrifices we make for love I guess.

The seat is lie flat, not fully flat. It also isn’t very well cushioned. I slept for a disjointed 4-5 hours, and was quite unhappy. I sat in the bulkhead, which meant the TV was in the armrest. This is actually slightly preferable because otherwise the screen is so small and far away in normal seats that it gets quite difficult to watch TV when reclined.

The soft product does make up some of the ground, as the food Air France offered was superb, as well as the service. I got a kick out of the flight attendant thinking I was French for the majority of the flight. It wasn’t until just before landing when he asked a more complex question about breakfast was I forced to break character and speak English.

All in all, be VERY careful which 777 you are flying on when booking business class with Air France. The next few years will still see this product in the skies, and if you pay top dollar for business class, you will inevitably be disappointed with the older Air France 777’s.