French / In France? Getting a visa during the strikes / Votre visa pendant les grèves

Khandoma

Dilliwalla : you're quite right, it is Swiss. I'm an old-fashioned girl. And arguably a worse nitpicker than you are so that's quite all right.

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Khandoma
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Zeppy

Swiss? We flew with them from Paris to New Delhi last year. The change of planes (getting through passport control and security) in Zuerich was infernal. The connection was much too tight. After my return I got giardia, on a date that made infection by plane food seem likely. And they somehow charged us a lot of money over a passport accidentally left on the plane. Other than this, no significant problems!

brownboy66

oh I don't know about that!

Khandoma

Zeppy : oh great . I figured the connexion would be tight, but didn't quite expect the rest (though I flew Swiss before and wasn't amazed by quality of service). I always book Asian veggie meals on planes. Not because I'm afraid of food poisoning : it's just a little less disgusting than the average western fare and I'm too much of a foodie not to care. Still it doesn't mean I'm out of trouble, by what you are saying. The good thing about those cheap Swiss tickets, though, is that they get you there rather rapidly, 11 hrs or so. The only other cheap planes that I could find for that period of time make you spend up to 10 hrs in Dubai or Bahrein or somewhere in the Emirates - been there, done that, it turned to a 17-hr wait, never again please, and my holidays are too short to waste one day each way. But thanks for the food warning, I'll pack a sandwich at the airport.
--- How can an airline charge you for leaving your passport on the plane ? Could you explain please ? It's always better to be forewarned.

Brownboy : do you mean that Dilliwalla is in a nitpicking league above my own, or that I'm not such an old-fashioned girl ? Glad to believe you either way - mostly because I'm in too much of a hurry to be nitpicking just now

Dilliwala

This was the LX code-share on an Air Canada aircraft, right?
I am beginning to believe that that is a truly lousy service. Had some family come over on it last year from ZRH, they were severely harrassed about some excess baggage, finally had to be booked as cargo after they (the pax) were almost off-loaded, were harrassed both ways by the flight crew about a bassinet for the infant in the party even though it had been pre-booked and confirmed - so much so that another pax had to intervene on the return flight and talk to the purser or captain before the bassinet materialised. This when the infant and one parent had to buy the higher-priced AC ticket on the same aircraft becos LX said they cud not book a bassinet since they didn't own the aircraft!
And the suitcase, full of prezzos and life-saving stuff, arrived not in 3 days as promised, but in 7 days. Via Basel/Mulhouse. I'm sure u all know where Basel/Mulhouse is in respect to Zurich and Delhi. This when there was the daily flight ZRH-DEL direct! (For those who don't know, the routing was similar to flying Del-Kolkata, via Ahmedabad).

Khandoma,
Is your flight also the LX/AC code-share? I heard something recently that LX was about to resume flights with own aircraft to DEL, but not sure about the date.
Totally agree about the food. It must be really tough for a connoisseur like u. Better pack 2 sandwiches if it's LX/AC.
What I've never understood is why the Indian veg. is so terrible on major Western airlines, reason being there are SO many Indians resident in those countries. Surely some of them cook well (we know they do) - for the life of me I can't imagine why these airlines don't HIRE some of these people!

PS: In case anyone's wondering, the life-saving stuff was Swiss chocolate, of course.

PPS: Hey, just noticed I made the 1000 club!

Khandoma

Hey Dilliwalla,

Congratulations on joining the 1,000 Club !
It says nothing anywhere on a code share. Checked on both Swiss and Paris airport websites, as sometimes this doesn't show on the ticket proper. Apparently it's a Swiss plane. Crossing my fingers here.

About the food : Swiss boasts of hiring a famous chef to design their meals, though I'm pretty sure that's for business class only. I've researched the makings of airplane food a bit, and knowing how the stuff gets made, there's no way it can taste good - except perhaps in Japan, where you get yummy sushi and sashimi in meatwagon class... Too much requirements for hygiene, allergies, religion, packing, and harmonization of re-heating speed (meaning all meals should re-heat at the same speed, no matter what's in them). With the new customs regulations I can't take my homemade meals with me anymore, not to mention the wine. Pity, if only for the ravenous look on my neighbour passenger's face when I opened my little boxes...

Great, if horrifying, airline story. Once, many years ago, my parents took an Aeroflot plane from Paris to New York. Their suitcase arrived a good few days later by way of... Moscow

brownboy66

Well done Mr Dilliwala!

Zeppy

Khandoma: The food on the outbound (to India) was just fine. The food on the return, which the airlines acquired in New Delhi, was less good. I got my giardia either from it or from a spiffy restaurant I ate in on my last day in New Delhi--to judge from the gestation period of the beasties. In the restaurant, I didn't drink the water, eat raw vegetables, etc. But in the plane I unwisely let down my guard and ate everything. So I incline toward the explanation that the plane food was responsible. No doubt this could happen on any airline.

As for the fee charged by Swiss: on the return, my daughter, who was recovering from a severe intestinal illness and was also hobbling in a cast, emerged from the plane in Zuerich without her around-the-neck passport holder. Swiss sent an agent into the plane to look for the passport. He didn't find it. We ourselves were not allowed to go back to look. Swiss assumed that she could not travel on to France (probably true) and very efficiently removed the two of us from the passenger list and unloaded our luggage rather than transferring it to the Paris flight. We didn't request that they do this. They just did it. I'm not exactly sure what the justification was for removing me from the passenger list, since I had my passport. They seated us in limbo--some transit lounge--while they investigated what to do with a passportless American. Fifteen minutes before our connecting flight to Paris, the cleaning crew found the passport holder stuck between the seats. Hallelujah. Big relief. However, Swiss told us that there was not enough time to get us back onto our original flight. They then charged both of us a "change of flight" fee for booking us on their next flight. Total: 200 euros or so. We argued--in vain. Granted, we had caused them a lot of trouble and grief--phone calls, unloading our suitcases, etc. Still, I believe that other airlines would have not dimmed our joy at recovering the passport by charging us a rebooking fee.

Main point for you, though, is: once you get off the plane in Zuerich, don't walk, run for the connecting flight. If it's like last year you can spend an hour or more trying to get through security.

Khandoma

Zeppy, thanks a lot for that. What a terrible story, you and your poor daughter must have had a horrible time. Swiss is really to blame for not letting you back on the plane to look for the passport : it's against regulations but they could have done a little something. The rest, unfortunately, can't be helped. They would unload your luggage because no luggage can travel without passengers (terrorism thing, valid for all airlines). It's true your daughter wouldn't have been let into France without a passport, and they removed you from the passenger list because your daughter was not previously registered as "UM" (unaccompanied minor), so she couldn't travel alone. But I suspect they've been really narrow-minded and expedient about the whole thing. That they do it to adults is one bad-service thing, but to a little sick girl, it's downright mean. And it's the first time that I hear of a change of planes fee - the unloading and phoning they do at no cost when the plane computer breaks down, for instance, so it's all included in the ticket price. Trust the Swiss to be mindful of every penny...

About the food : I read somewhere that Swiss (airline) food preparation is now certified ISO 9002, so hopefully that reduces the risk by some measure. As I said in an earlier post I witnessed the makings of airplane food, and although it makes you want to stop eating altogether, it is rather hygienic - in some countries at least. Enforcing hygiene regulations abroad is each airline's job, and some are better at it than others.

Will take your hint and run for the connexion, hoping my Mumbai plane departs on time. If I miss this connexion due to the plane's late departure I do hope they'll put us in the next plane at no charge, since I'll be absolutely broke by then, and Zurich to Paris on a bicycle is a little too much for my adventurous soul - especially in this lovely weather...

Dilliwala

She can if she's 14.

The condition of the contract is that it's the responsibility of the transferring airline to get u to the transfer airport in time (subject to factors beyond their control like weather, ATC strikes, etc). If they don't they have to find u another connection, even if they have to absorb extra costs for that. In general airlines don't charge each other for such events. Certainly LX won't be charging themselves if they put u on another of their own flights! Even for events beyond their control like the 2 examples I gave, pax are not harrassed with extra fees.

Certainly in zeppy's case what thet did was criminal - I've never heard of a similar case before.

Zeppy

Actually, my daughter was 21. Be that as it may--they didn't ask, they just acted.

Dilliwala

So then u have sufficient cause to sue, altho u may not want to go that road. In any case I suggest u write them a legal sounding letter and demand the rebooking fee on your own ticket back - had they offloaded her alone, u might have opted to stay back with her anyway, but who's to prove that?
1 year on they will probably say "oh, u're complaining very late" but I wudn't be deterred by that. There are no laws in force anywhere that allow airlines to offload an adult accompanying another adult without his/her consent. So u def have a strong case. Your daughter admittedly doesn't, altho all of this cud have been better handled by them to start with. You certainly shud rave and rant about that too.
Try to find out the address for the head of Customer Relations and write to him/her, a complaint to a general PO box or whatever will probably land at the bottom of the pile, if not the bin.
BTW, this was the LX code-share on an AC aircraft, right?
Your cause of action is against the carrier whose code appears in the 'airline code' box on your ticket (which I hope u kept a copy of, if not the boarding pass too. Even otherwise no matter - after checking their records, they will not be able to deny that u took that flight).

Khandoma

Hi Friends,
Just to let you, and other travellers, know that I had no trouble whatsoever with the Swiss flight.
Quite the contrary. It was one of the quietest, most civilised plane trips I ever had - can you imagine the toilet floor still being dry at landing ?
Food on the way to Mumbai was unremarkable but OK. Food on the way back was remarkably cheap : one masala-stuffed croissant, period, for a plane departing at 1:25 AM. If you had dinner at 7PM like me, that was hardly enough. Breakfast the next morning was very correct and plentiful, however.
The plane was on time, allowing 1h30 for the connexion. Security took about 30 mn each way. So, no time for shopping (mercifully), but time enough if you go straight to the right concourse. If you have a little more time than I had, the Zurich airport is a really nice one, making the Paris airport look like the Middle Ages. Silence, leather chairs, easy-to-read signs. Obviously everything is expensive and most shops sell cashmere sweaters and zillion-dollar watches, but that's fun to watch for a bit.
The only bad thing I have to say is about their choice of movies, both US and Indian. But I'm old enough to have known transatlantic flights with no movies at all, and then with one awful and mercilessly edited movie, so this is very relative.
All told, and for the price, I would recommend flying Swiss any day.

Zeppy

Glad to hear it! Did you like Swiss better than Air France directly from Paris (price aside)?

Khandoma

(Zeppy, I seem to have missed your reply, sorry for the late answer). Honestly I never flew Air France to India. I try to avoid them as much as I can, really, especially on long distances. Late planes, ugly service, ugly food, no leg room, and I never came across a cheap enough ticket on this route ; the only good thing I can say about them is their planes are in good condition. Terrible memories of my regular trips to Seattle with them, soon favored BA even with a stopover in London. My previous trip to India was with Quatar, so it wasn't a stopover as much as a week-end in their airport ...
I understand the appeal of a direct flight, indeed. On the other hand, Air France flights are late more often than not, when the flight crews are not altogether on strike (as last week-end), and I don't care too much for waiting in packed airports. So, it would take a very cheap ticket for me to give them a try.