My sister is flying Delta to Florence (to meet me in October). Changes flights in Paris -CDG- to Delta's connecting partner Air France and cannot get a seat assignment. Delta says She has to wait until she gets to the gate at CDG. I am really apprehensive about this, and Air France's 800 # never gives you the opportunity to talk with a real person. Anyone ever been faced with this? Anyone have a solution?
This is for the Paris-Florence flight? That is the norm for flights within Europe; I'm not sure if even Air France elites can get advance seat assignments. Going from memory, I think online check-in opens 24 hours before the first flight on an itinerary, so people connecting from the U.S. get a head start on people originating in Paris. This may only be if the transatlantic flight is operated by Air France, though. I tend to think that when she checks in for her first flight operated by Delta (if that's what she has), she'll get a boarding pass with a seat assignment for the AF flight.
I've flown AF multiple times and never, ever had a problem getting a seat assignment.
In fact last month was SFO-CDG-ZAG and then return. seat assignments the whole way.
It doesn't matter if you are switching to them in CDG or not, I've also done DL SFO-ATL-BCN-CDG and return as was able to get the BCN-CDG on AF in advance
I'm not sure what # you are calling but go to their website, go into usa site and then customer service number...they are based on the East Coast,
jvp, this is common practice on international flights. If it is a fairly full flight the airline will hold a certain number of seats to be released at the airport. She'll get a seat. Just tell her to get to the airport early so she can have her pick.
We've had this happen with Delta/AF connections. For the short flight from Paris to Florence, I wouldn't really worry that much about a specific seat assignment.
Thanks so much for the information. Found the website, found a phone number, found this information. If you are traveling economy internationally, you can only get a seat assignment once you are in Europe. Since my sister's flight is from Atlanta (via CDG) to Florence, does that mean she will go through customs in Florence? Or will she have to go through customs at CDG and then drag her bag to the Air France counter? What a can of worms. I am feeling guilty since I am the one who set up the flight for her.
Since my sister's flight is from Atlanta (via CDG) to Florence, does that mean she will go through customs in Florence?
She will go through passport control at CDG and will get a passport entry stamp at CDG. If she has checked her luggage, she will not see it until she arrives in Florence. Italian customs can ask for an inspection, but it has never happened to me on similar flights. I've never flown into Florence but some Italian airports have had separate luggage claim areas for luggage arriving from outside the EU.
Well that's a bummer, and the info has definately changed in the last 6 weeks.
Since Delta and Air France have interline agreements, she should (now I'm going to be careful on what I say is certain) be able to check her luggage all the way through to Florence.
she goes through passport control, she then goes to the gate and asks for a seat assignment. she shouldnt have to leave the security area she is already in and go to the ticket counter.
has she traveled before? it's really quite easy... it's just like changing plans on US soil, the only added part is passport control and she can always ask for assistance, being inside CDG English speaking help will fairly easy to find.
See this page from Air France on transferring at CDG, with some variance because it presumes an AF-operated transatlantic flight. I find that Delta uses Terminal 2E; the flight to Florence would be out of 2D. You can follow the "Display transfer routes" link on that page and have the whole route explained. Note:
quote:
In each terminal, you will find Air France Transfer counters. Our staff is at your disposal to answer any questions you may have, to issue your boarding card (if you did not check in all the way to your final destination), and to help if you missed your transfer flight.
I'm not sure if Delta will issue the connecting BP at her check-in in the U.S. There will be security screening; one hopes she has more than the 45-minute minimum connecting time.
We have several times had connecting flights in Paris, although we have always booked our tickets directly with Air France. In every case, they gave us seat assignments for the in-Europe leg when we checked in at Logan in Boston. I don't know if it's different if you book with Delta, but AF has never given us seat assignments for those shorter flights ahead of check-in.
Right now we have tickets on Air One direct from Boston to Milan in September. It says on the e-ticket that seat assignments will be made at check-in. I hope we can actually get assignments before then, but I figure there's no point in calling them yet because the service is so new. In fact, as was recently posted on the Italy board, Air One just ordered a whole bunch of new planes, so maybe they don't even know yet exactly which plane they will be flying at that time.
This is now normal not only for AF but all of European airlines. European flights seats are not assigned right away. LH does the same and BA does the same even for transatlantic flights.
I wouldn't worry too much. Last time when I did my online checkin I was able to select the seats and check bags all the way through with AF and that was 30 hours in before first flight. When traveling with LH, they were unable to issue boarding passes for second flight, but we had to stop at the desk in Munich, and it didn't take long. That is because some flights are operated by partners in the end and so they won't know seating arrangements until they know which plane exactly. Besides there are numerous flights between European destinations, so not to worry they will manage to get you to destination.
Anastasia, your comment "some flights are operated by partners in the end" probably is the explanation. I called Air France's 800 number and never was connected to a person but a recording informed me that if a person was on an international flight connecting to an "in-country" flight, no seat assignment could be made until the passenger was on-site at the connecting gate/counter. Also, the small print on my ticket says the Air France flight from CDG to Firenze is operated by Citi Jet. She is an experienced flyer, but this just seems like an awful lot of hassle. We'll keep our fingers crossed that things go smoothly.
One thing I do when I have flights like yours (ticketed by Delta, flight on Air France) is to try to get the Record locator no. (confirmation no.) from each airline. Delta will have given you theirs, but if you want to have Air France's RL# you'll probably have to get it from Air France. They will be different on the two airlines.
I do this just as a precaution against someone's computer not wanting to talk to someone elses computer. It hasn't happened to me but I like to have both sets of numbers.
Gethuman.com says you can call Air France at 800 237-2747, press 3 at the 1st prompt, and press 2 at the 2nd prompt and you will get a customer service representative to talk to.
Fibonacci, your info worked beautifully. I actually spoke to an AF agent this afternoon. Found out: since my sister will be "in transit" there won't be any customs for her to go through at CDG. That will happen in Floren ce. Can't get a seat assignment until she is at gate in CDG, but found out that her flight number is different than the one that Delta gave me. She'll be transferring to CitiJet (partner of Air France) and I got Citijet's flight number.
Then I googled Air France schedule - found out she will depart from Terminal 2D and that Delta flights arrive at Terminal 2C. Looked at map of terminal.
Hope I haven't bored you with all this trivia but writing it all out helps me to commit it to memory. Thanks so much for your interest. Wish it were October.
her flight number is different than the one that Delta gave me. She'll be transferring to CitiJet (partner of Air France) and I got Citijet's flight number
I am not surprised that Delta gave you a different flight number. On "Code Share" flights the same flight will normally have a different flight number associated with the airline that is "code-sharing".
I suggest you also get the Air France's Record Locater number for your sister's reservation. This is different from the flight number.
No, they arrive at 2E. You can confirm this by doing flight status at www.airfrance.us . I don't know which flight is involved, but starting from JFK, ATL, or CVG the Delta-operated flights are listed as Air France codeshares with flight numbers in the 8000s; they all show 2E arrival.
In case there's confusion about customs versus passport control, it's correct that customs, which requires claiming of checked baggage and you generally barely notice, happens in Florence, but passport control, which can be slower, will happen in Paris. I refer back to this page on transfers. Follow the "Display the transfer routes" link under the diagram, select from the "Arriving from" and "Departing for" menus and it charts your route; it doesn't make a difference that the first route is operated by Delta. When I do Atlanta to Florence, it does have a "Go through Customs" step; that would nominally be for carry-on baggage, but you're unlikely to notice it. Also, where it says "Go past the transfer counter," if she doesn't have a boarding pass, she would need to stop at that counter and get it. In case you were thinking "gate at CDG" meant her departure gate, I don't think so; she would need the boarding pass to clear security for 2D.
It's happened in past years that phone agents have given inaccurate information; the Web site was more accurate, as passengers could confirm.
Andrew and Fibonacci, thanks for sticking with me. I now have a Record Locator number for the CDG leg to FLR and have found the site that confirms arrival in Term 2E - departure Term 2D. However, need technical advice from Andrew. I cannot get the "display transfer routes" link under the diagram to appear. I double click (left button) and nothing happens. Any clue as to why this won't work for me. All else has functioned.
I wonder if it was because the link I gave was very long and probably included cookie information. I did it from home and this morning at work I have the same problem. Try it this way:
www.airfrance.us ; from the top menu bar select Information and Services, At the airport, Paris-Charles de Gaulle transfers. Then the "Display transfer routes" link works for me.
