[Story Time] How Air France funded our weekend after a delayed flight?

It’s the morning of June 13, 2015, and we’re at CDG airport, about to board a flight Frankfurt to Germany to attend a concert by a band we really love: 2cellos.

It’s a small event for us : at the time, we worked a lot and weren’t used to doing much with our weekends, which were mostly for resting.

So we decided to treat ourselves by booking a nice hotel (a Hilton!) that would let us walk to the concert.

While waiting at the gate, we learn that our flight is delayed by 1 hour, then 2 hours… No worries though, the flight was scheduled for 10 AM and the concert is in the evening, so we have plenty of time!

Then it’s finally time to board. As we scan our boarding pass, the flight attendant asks us to wait on the side along with a handful of other passengers. This doesn’t bode well.

And then the axe falls: we’re not going!

The explanation is simple: the original plane has broken down, it’s been replaced with a smaller plane with limited capacity, so there aren’t seats for everyone. We ask, “Why us?” The explanation is also simple: in such cases, Air France’s policy is simple: passengers who paid the least for their tickets are the ones penalized. We had booked our tickets 6 months in advance, so I imagine we got some good deals.

We’re then asked to leave the boarding area and go to the airline’s counter to find a solution. We have no checked luggage, so no worries on that front.

At the counter, we simply explain that we have a deadline (our concert!) and we easily find another flight that leaves a few hours later. We were hoping for first class but that wasn’t the case 🙂

The attendant also offers us a choice of compensation:

• Either in Air France miles (I don’t remember the amount)
• Or in euros: 250 € per person!

I now know that this is just the application of a European regulation on delays, but we didn’t know about it at the time. Plus, it’s really nice to be offered it without having to ask.

I didn’t know the value of miles at the time, so there was no hesitation: we want euros 🙂

There were two options: either a direct payment to the bank card used for the ticket, or cash payment. Since I had switched banks in the meantime, I chose cash: I was given a voucher to exchange for the payment at the Air France office a few minutes’ walk away.

Since it was lunchtime and I knew it was possible, I asked if we could get a voucher for the restaurant. We got it without any trouble.

So we went to collect the 500 € that covered all our weekend expenses (flights + concert + hotel) before calmly having a free lunch while waiting for our flight, then attending a great concert and eating currywurst. We’d love more weekends like that!