I’m writing this from Los Angeles, and I’m alive and well. I was a bit scared yesterday when I knew I had to go throught he flight with AirFrance, not for the company itself, since I had no experience with it at all, but rather for the change at Paris airport.
What I was really scared of was asking for instructions, in English, while in Paris — you know what they say about French people and foreign languages. I’m not sure if it would have been a real issue but to be on the safe side, when I had to ask for indications, I asked at the booth for Delta (since the two airlines are partners and the flight was actually code-shared between the two).
On the whole the experience on the flight has been very friendly; not only the flight attendant on the flight from Venice to Paris spoke Italian fluently (even though you could hear an accent), and gave me all the information I needed to catch my coincidence flight to LA, but even the security officer who last checked my ID when leaving Paris recognized the emblem on my passport and greeted me in Italian!
The actual bothersome part was one I didn’t expect: due to as strike in Paris, the flight was delayed an hour — and they told us 10 minutes after we were supposed to have started boarding. But at least the flight was nice, and I arrived just an hour late. I did have some trouble on the flight due to a couple with small children sitting right behind me, and one of the children being quite noisy, but I got nice people on my row, and I did end up even watching a movie (a decent one at it).
Anyway, I think I’ll probably keep using AirFrance for the Venice to LA trips, after this.
