{"id":2233,"date":"2014-10-08T10:22:37","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T04:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/?p=2233"},"modified":"2015-12-10T18:13:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T12:43:47","slug":"skyteam-delta-airfrance-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/skyteam-delta-airfrance-review\/","title":{"rendered":"2 days in the air with Skyteam"},"content":{"rendered":"

I usually try flying Star Alliance (*A), especially with Air India (AI) on board<\/a>. But there are still quite a few sectors where *A lacks good connections – like Portland for example. I’ve been consciously avoiding Air France (AF) after reading about their mistreatment of Indians<\/a>. We did try booking easterly via Japan, but with just\u00a0a week’s notice, even that was sold out. I was left with no option but to fly Skyteam<\/a>\u00a0all through\u00a0BOM-CDG-SLC-PDX-AMS-BOM with AF-DL.<\/p>\n

The numbers<\/h2>\n

The to & fro journeys happen to be my\u00a0longest 2 ever: a whopping 32 hours end-to-end to Portland<\/strong>, and 25 hours on the return. It also has the highest meeting-to-journey\u00a0(MTJ) ratio of \u00a028.5 hours of travel per hour of business meetings<\/strong> \ud83d\ude42 The previous record was 15 hours. CDG-SLC also happens to be my longest sector this year – 5072 miles.<\/p>\n

BOM-CDG on Air France<\/h2>\n
\"Midnight
Midnight snack on AF<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Without airline lounge access, I used the Clipper lounge which seems inferior to the new CSIA First Class lounge. We had an on-time departure around\u00a02am. On board the A330, the crew seemed very pleasant. They distributed headphones and a night kit with an eye mask & ear muffs. The light midnight snack was the largest served by any airline that operates flights post midnight. LH, LX, VS, DL all serve a puff roll with drinks. Apart from the hot snack, AF served fruits – really help keep you hydrated on long flights – and a granola bar to munch later in the night. They used an older In-flight entertainment (IFE) system with an average\u00a0selection. Before landing, they served a full breakfast and landed on time.<\/p>\n

Here is the full menu:<\/p>\n

\"Economy
Economy menu on AF<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 3 hour layover at CDG was a killer given that there isn’t a single lounge on the Skyteam terminal that accepts PriorityPass (PP). London (LHR) has the same situation if you’re flying Virgin (VS), BA or\u00a0Jet (9W).<\/p>\n

Delta<\/h2>\n

I first flew Delta (DL) 2 years back to AMS, when Continental (CO) was still merging in. DL completely changed my impression of their service levels from where I’d last seen them – you had to pay for everything. Their IFE\u00a0is one the best I’ve seen: an unusually large screen and some great programming. They had the latest movies like Chef and episodes of Silicon Valley & Veep. Headsets were finally free, but I was happier plugging in my own in the standard\u00a03.5mm jack.<\/p>\n

\"The
The screen is large enough to accommodate videos inset<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"Like other things, they made drinks free too – not the blends SQ serves, but decent stuff. The menu also seemed to have gone through a revamp. The first meal was sour chicken with a roll, salad & pastry. Mid-flight, they offered a light snack – crackers, hummus, green olives with a piece of chocolate. To me, it was the best snack ever – and much better than the vada pav<\/em> or chickpeas wrap that United (UA) serves. The last meal was a typical roll with ice cream. The crew was super nice\u00a0on all sectors.<\/p>\n

\"Seat-pitch
Seat-pitch is horrible<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only real problem was the seat recline. The Economy seat hardly reclines which is more than a serious problem for international sectors on DL. Its so bad that it offsets all the hard work that the crew puts in to good service. And that’s 5 ft someone speaking; imagine what would happen to Hriday Gopal (picture<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Things got worse for me with the 3 hour layover at Salt Lake City (SLC), after having left my house 27 hours ago. PP has limited coverage in the US.<\/p>\n

SkyPriority<\/h2>\n

Skyteam’s Frequent Flyer Program (FFP) assures Premium Economy seats for Gold members which *A discontinued. This is a huge plus given their ridiculous\u00a0seat pitch in Economy. Like other programs, lounge access, priority boarding and baggage handling is included.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

I found the service on all flights very impressive. I still feel biased by their mistreatment of Indians but its going to take a while until I’m convinced. Allegiance to the Skyteam is not a bad idea – particularly if you’re flying a lot within the US or Europe. With Mumbai as my base, I only have access to 4 Skyteam members as against a dozen *A airlines . Plus you have AI offering you all possible domestic connections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I usually try flying Star Alliance (*A), especially with Air India (AI) on board. But there are still quite a few sectors where *A lacks good connections – like Portland for example. I’ve been consciously avoiding Air France (AF) after reading about their mistreatment of Indians. We did try booking easterly via Japan, but with … Continue reading 2 days in the air with Skyteam<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[939,838,938,911,883,921,940],"class_list":["post-2233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-air-france","tag-airline","tag-delta","tag-frequent-flyer","tag-paris","tag-salt-lake-city","tag-skyteam"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}