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

Zeppy

Interesting! Air France is one of two airlines that flies nonstop between Washington D.C. and Paris and takes a cabin dog (the other one being United). So I used to take Air France all the time until one time they had a strike and I got involuntarily rebooked on another airline that wasn't nonstop at all, quite the opposite! That was such a nuisance that I decided never again Air France, at least not on that route. But Air France from Paris to New Delhi looked convenient (if expensive). Air India also looked convenient. It was the cheapest of them all and sold out many months in advance. But none of the travel review sites had anything good to say about Air India. The complaint level for Air India was much higher than for any other airline flying to India. Have you ever flown them?

Khandoma

I only flew Air India on national flights, within India. That was years ago (there were no national lowcosts then) so not reliable advice.
On national flights it was more / less OK, sometimes very late planes, but I don't remember any outstanding problems.
However on international flights, going to / from Europe, I don't know one traveller who's happy about it.

So I guess you have a choice between an expensive nonstop ticket on a crappy airline and a less expensive ticket with a quick stopover on a much better plane. Obviously you wouldn't fly Swiss again, I can understand that. But if you can afford Air France you can afford British Airways, which I would highly recommend. To save money, if this is early enough before your flight, you can find a cheap Eurostar ticket, add the cost of the airport shuttle and fly from Gatwick (good reliable shuttle) to India, seamlessly. If you are in downtown Paris, beats the Ryanair / Easyjet flights hands down. I tried doing that, but my trip was a last-minute surprise so moneywise it didn't work for me.

Let me know what you think !

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Khandoma
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Lakshmi66

We will be flying Air India from Paris to Mumbai on 23 Jan! Air France was nearly double the price, so we chose the cheaper option. The reviews I read on the Internet had plenty to say about the state of the toilets (horrendous) and the fact that the staff don't bother to clean up the plane before takeoff (the flight comes in to Paris from Newark): Air India crew are apparently government employees who can't be sacked, so they couldn't care less. But quite a few people said they serve good Indian food on board. We've decided we'll just have to go to the loo before takeoff and then try and sleep through the flight: with any luck there won't be any flight delays or cancellations. Fingers crossed!