I alluded to my sidetrip to Paris this April in an earlier post and said I would be telling more about how I ended up in Paris with time to kill. Well, here we go. This post is about how I hate and loathe yet like Air France. How can such a large company such as this be saddled with such incompetency, stupidity, and outright rudeness and yet survive (if not thrive) is a mystery. You will recall my incident last April with Air France in Turin: after checking in both bags (both of which were well under the 23kg limit) the gate agent/slut/bitch/cow (take your pick of insult) takes a look at my larger carryon and announced it was too big for taking on and it was also overweight, and proceeds to rape me for 200 euros, all the while smiling all so smugly. I hope she develops a horribly disfiguring untreatable disease later in life or is transferred to Outer Mongolia.
This past trip could have easily been as aggravating and noxious. It turned out pretty good. On Sunday night, I went to the airport and chatted up the ticketing agent, and got my two check-in bags checked through without any problem. I didn't bring my carry ons, figuring when I showed up in the morning there would be a completely different person at the gate and therefore highly unlikely to call me out for having two bags when I probably was only entitled to one. It all worked out just fine on Monday morning as I got to the airport, had a cup of coffee, and got on the flight to Paris without any problem. And then we sat, sat, and sat, and when we were tired of sitting we all took a break to sit down. Everybody was looking around wondering WTF, over? It turned out one of the three flight computers wouldn't wake up so it took a hour and a half to figure out the problem and get us off the ground. Now, you have also heard me bitch about the astoundingly ill-designed and laid out POS known as Charles de Gaulle Airport but with enough time it can be dealt with and normally I make my SLC flight without any problem. Not. This. Time. Not even close. We landed at CDG at 10 am, and my SLC flight was scheduled to start boarding at 10:20. Now, at a normal airport, even a large one, my chances of making the SLC flight would be ok, if not good because in normal airports there are moving walkways, those electric golf carts, and competent gate agents, all of which are designed to move you and your crap from one gate to another efficiently. No way in Paris. CDG is so big, so spread out, so disorganized, and staffed by hugely incompetent Air France agents that I really had no way to make my next flight. In fact given these circumstances, it is a wonder that CDG doesn't spontaneously combust or explode. It is a huge Gallic zit on the countryside.
So, we land and the flight staff say "There will be an Air France agent at the gate to help you with any questions for any connecting flights. Have a nice day." If this were any normal airline, there would be two or three gate agents at the arrival gate, they would have a computer printout of each passenger on the late flights and the gates and times of any connecting flights, and they would have made (or at least tried) to make arrangements for folks to get to any connecting flights. No such luck with Air France: the lone agent only had a radio and no fucking clue how to do her job. I asked can I make my flight, and she said "I don't think so." That's it, that's all she said. Nothing about where my next flight was, nothing about how to get there the quickest way, nothing about "I have a radio, I will call and have the next flight held for five minutes" or "A cart is on the way to get you to your next flight", merely a gaullic shrug and distain for being asked to do her job. Fucking astounding. So off I run. Another huge problem was there were no TV or computer screens at the arrival gate to tell me where to go so to find out this information I had to leave the secure area and I do so (so now I am well and truly fucked). I then discover my SLC flight was leaving from concourse E, and there was a connecting corridor with concourse E from G which I noted as I ran past it just before leaving the secure area. I approached a help desk only to be given the response: "Oh mousieur, you should have taken the corridor, why are you here, tut, tut, tut, etc. we-are-absolutely-of-no-fucking-assistance-to-you-except-to-make-you-feel-very-merde-ish-go-away-now-we-must-do-our-nails." Now, you would think the arrival gate agent would look at her printout list, and say "Mousieur, your flight is leaving from gate E23 and there is a connecting corridor just up the concorse. Do not go out of the secure area but take this left and you may reach your flight." Easy, huh? Again, too difficult for Air France and the Einsteins they hired. This c*nt couldn't be bothered. So, I am standing there and wondering how the F I am going to make my flight which boards in ten minutes and takes off in a hour.
My Zurich flight had landed at concourse G, which is not connected in any way to any other concourses of CDG except by a bus (and the soooo secret underground passageway), so I manage to catch it but find to my great relief that it is being driven by the only Frenchman who obeys the speed limit. Unbelievable. Things couldn't get worse right? Wrong. The bus goes one way only, and concourse E was the last concourse it would reach. I jump off at concourse A when I see it is directly across from E and plod inside (by this time I am done running and am reduced to plodding), downstairs and through a corridor connecting A to E (no fast motorized walkways in CDG at all so you have to walk or run everywhere and the distances are pretty long).
I enter Concourse E and go through customs and get to the security line. I have always had a huge complaint about CDG security, and not because it is inefficient. On the contrary, given the huge number of passengers, it actually moves pretty quickly. CDG has several lines based on the closeness of your departure but the security line idiot wench put me in the wrong line and when I got in the correct line a extremely rude frenchman (or Russian, I couldn't tell) refused to let me jump line when I explained my dilemma. He said fuck off and I thanked him profusely for his humanity and generosity. It's ok, shitbag; my country will soon own your country (if it doesn't already) and you'll work for us fuckface. I am still pissed about that, and if I ever meet this prick in a dark alley he's going to the ICU.
I find out my gate number and plod as fast as I can to the gate only to see my flight about ten feet from the ramp and backing up. FFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKK. I drop my carryons and curse up a blue streak for about five minutes. I actually embarrassed the gate agents with my astounding proficiency. After one gate agent said "Mousier, you language is not helping so please calm down." I did as I then realized I couldn't do dick about my situation so screw it might as well roll with what comes along now. You might think that after the appalling service I had received from Air France in CDG thus far that morning, I was going to be told no hotel, no service, the next flight is in ten days, etc., etc. but NOOO. I actually had a gate agent who worked for Air France who was not only competent, but courteous, friendly, and gave me some good advice. He said I would have to spend the night somewhere, that AF would be picking up the tab, and my choices were Newark NJ, NYC, Atlanta, or Paris. Gee, that's a hard decision. I was considering Newark but Paris won. Pascal, the SLC gate agent, got me a seat on the SLC flight the next day and said my bags would be taken care of overnight so I didn't have to schlep them through the airport and to the hotel and my life was immediately better. He wished me good luck and advised me that if I wanted to go to Paris the train system would be slow and crowded, and many museums in Paris would be crowded as that day was some national holiday and schools were out. He sent me down to customer service where Marie was exceptionally helpful and gave me directions to the shuttle bus for my hotel, my hotel reservation, and meal chits. It took a while to find my way back out onto the concourse and I had to ask another AF agent how to get out and he actually took the time to walk me out. How in the world is it possible for an airline to have such rude, unhelpful, and incompetent workers going one way and extremely courteous, helpful, and exceptional workers going the other? Air France is f*cking bipolar.
I was able to find the shuttle bus station after a while (I had to ask the Info desk above the train station for additional help as the closer I got to the shuttle bus stop the worse the signage became). I considered coming back to the airport to catch a train to Paris but after seeing the mayhem at the airport train station decided no friggin way. I go to the hotel and check in, arrange my room, grab my cameras, and back to the front desk for a taxi. I get a taxi and 30 minutes and 50 euros later I am at the base of the Eiffel Tower. I walk around Paris for five hours and take another taxi back to the hotel for a later dinner and bed. Up the next day and to the airport and my flight back home without any issues.
So, that is how I ended up spending the night outside Paris and was able to take those photos in Paris. Will I fly AF again? I really don't have a choice since the Paris-SLC flight is so convenient on this end so yes I will. I just won't expect much of AF and it's agents.
