Review: Air France Business Class on the 777-300ER
Air France 777-300ER Business Class
A+C Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Flight Details
We flew on Air France from San Francisco (SFO) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) on AF 83 in May 2023. The flight was scheduled to depart San Francisco at 2:55pm and arrive in Paris at 10:45am the following morning. Air France flies a Boeing 777-300ER on this 10 hour and 50 minute flight. This plane had a 4 class configuration including Air France’s exclusive La Premiere cabin.
Ground Experience
Check In
Air France flies out of the International Terminal A gates at SFO and has check in counters in the area between Terminal A and G.
We had already checked in and received our mobile boarding passes, but I decided to join the queue in case Air France needed to check our passports. On the day of our flight, there seemed to only be a single business class check in counter open and the representative had their hands full helping the passenger. We waited in the queue for around 10 minutes with no signs of movement before giving up and resorted to using one of the kiosks to print our boarding passes.
It was pretty disappointing that another desk was not made available for business class passengers, but on the bright side kiosks were available.
Lounge
Unfortunately, the Air France lounge in SFO was undergoing renovation when we visited. I received a text the day before our flight mentioning this and inviting us to use the China Airlines lounge instead.
The China Airlines lounge is located alongside a majority of the other airline lounges in Terminal A, to the left immediately after security. This lounge was one of the smallest and saddest lounges I have ever seen. I would not recommend arriving early in hopes of enjoying a nice lounge before your flight, you will be disappointed. The interior was very dated, the tables were cramped, and we could not find any outlets anywhere.
The new Air France lounge opened a month after our flight, on June 16, 2023, and the interior looks really sleek.
Onboard Experience
Cabin
The business class cabin onboard this Boeing 777-300ER had 58 business class seats in a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone configuration, with 16 seats in the front cabin and 42 seats in the rear cabin behind the galley. The front cabin is located immediately behind the 4 seats in the La Premiere cabin, which also features a 1-2-1 configuration.
Air France 777-300ER Cabin Configuration, Credit: aerolopa.com
All seats lie flat and have direct aisle access. Those traveling solo should opt for the window seats since those seats have a bit more privacy. Couples can sit in the middle seats, but with the reverse herringbone configuration, you will not be sitting adjacent to one another. On this flight, we sat in 3E and 3F, two of the middle seats at the front of the business class cabin.
Air France 777-300ER Business Class Cabin
I snapped a few photos of the La Premiere cabin as well and it looked extremely elegant, it is definitely on the bucket list now!
Air France 777-300ER La Premiere Seat
Seat
The seat is in a standard reverse herringbone configuration and we found that it was quite comfortable. Since we were in the middle seat, there was also a divider between the seats that a flight attendant removed after we were seated. We found the seat to have a decent amount of storage as well.
The seats we had picked were great in terms of privacy since no passengers are walking by. This is because the business class lavatories are between the two business class cabins and the La Premiere passengers have their own lavatory at the front of the plane.
Air France 777-300ER Business Class Seat
Amenities
When we boarded, each seat contained a pillow, blanket, and coat hanger. I found the pillow nice and fluffy and the blanket was pretty standard. It was certainly not the fluffiest business class blanket ever, but it was manageable. The signature Air France coat hanger was a nice touch, but I ended up not using it since I was not wearing a jacket.
Shortly after boarding we were presented with a menu and amenity kit. The amenity kit came in two different colors and the contents were pretty basic, with the highlight being two tiny bottles of Clarins products. The flight attendant let us pick which color we wanted, so we ended up taking one of each.
Air France Business Class Amenity Kit
Air France Business Class Amenity Kit Content
Immediately after we pushed back from the gate, the flight attendants also came around to offer pre-departure beverages with a choice of orange juice or champagne. The timing of this felt a bit odd to me, but I’m not complaining about being offered champagne!
Food
The onboard menu was clean and simple with only 3 choices for the main. We both pre-ordered our meal on the Air France website before the flight, selecting the “red meat dish” which turned out to be the pan-fried tournedos with a red wine jus.
On this route, the champagne Air France serves is Pommery Royal Brut.
Before meal service began, the flight attendant came around with hot towels, something that has been rare to find since the pandemic.
Lunch started off with an appetizer of pan-fried ahi tuna and a box of crêpes fourrées.
The next course was the starter, consisting of a lobster salad, smoked pork filet, marinated fennel and pear, pecorino cheese, a side salad, and bread.
Next up was the main, I had the pan-fried tournedos with a red wine jus flavored with coffee and spices, served with baked potatoes and green beans. I thought the steak was cooked really well and the sauce they paired it with was excellent.
Lastly, I opted for the fresh fruit salad and Adrienne had the trio of dessert miniatures.
Overall, I enjoyed the lunch meal service and felt everything paired well together. The only complaint I can think of is that the meal service took around 2 hours in total. Personally, I enjoyed the pace as I did not feel rushed, but there were times where we sat for a while waiting for the next course to be presented.
We also had a breakfast meal service prior to landing and I chose the warm breakfast option. This consisted of a basque omelet, potato croquette, a croissant, plain yogurt, and a fresh fruit salad. They offer some cereal to pair with the yogurt, but I skipped it.
Bed
There are buttons beside the seat that can be used to convert the seat into the lie-flat bed. There is no mattress pad offered for this flight, but the seat felt comfortable enough to sleep on and I was able to fall asleep easily.
I had read that Air France tends to have a warmer cabin and with no individual air nozzles to control temperature at your seat, this can be problematic. Initially I found the cabin temperature quite comfortable, however I did wake up feeling quite warm, so I do think the rumors are true.
IFE + Wi-Fi
The IFE on this plane featured a 16” screen and looked quite dated.
Similar to most reverse herringbone seats, the IFE is stowed and needs to be released by pushing a button beside the screen. This allows viewing the IFE from a much more comfortable angle. Despite its age, the IFE was very responsive. There were also noise canceling headphones provided in the storage cubby, but I would say they were mediocre at best. If you want to spend the entire flight watching movies or TV shows, I would recommend bringing your own pair.
The best part of the IFE was that it did feature an exterior camera, but only from the bottom of the plane.
IFE Featuring an Exterior Camera
The plane was also equipped with Wi-Fi with the option of free messaging for all passengers. Only La Premiere passengers were entitled to free Wi-Fi, all other passengers had to pay. We did not purchase Wi-Fi for this flight and settled for the free messaging.
Service
The service on this flight was a bit varied. On my side of the plane, the same flight attendant served meals and drinks the entire flight, while Adrienne had several different flight attendants throughout the flight. I felt very looked after and enjoyed the service, but Adrienne thought the service fell short in several areas. For example, during breakfast service I was asked if I had wanted any cereal to pair with the yogurt, but Adrienne was never asked.
Booking
I booked these seats almost a year in advance, back in June 2022. We needed to be in Europe for a wedding in mid June and wanted to sightsee beforehand, so our dates were semi-flexible. Our flexibility helped a lot since Air France uses dynamic pricing for flight awards which can make it incredibly frustrating to find award availability for decent value.
We paid 142,000 miles and $406.20 USD in taxes and fees for two people, one way between SFO-CDG, which means the cost per person one way was 71,000 miles. Paying cash for this flight usually costs around $6,500 USD round trip per person on average, so around $3,250 USD one way per person. Even with the taxes costing $203.10 per person, this was a great use of miles to fly across the Atlantic.
Conclusion
I had really high hopes for this flight since I had heard such good things about Air France, especially in regards to catering. The soft product was the highlight of the trip, the catering and service were good, while the hard product left a lot to be desired. Improving the ground experience would definitely boost things as well and this should hopefully be better now than the Air France lounge in SFO has reopened.
I would be willing to give Air France another shot, but likely only on their new cabins which they feature on some Boeing 777 and Airbus 350 planes.
A+C Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars