Why We Are Unlikely to Fly Air France Again

The following is a feedback for Air France. Unless you're looking for an opinion about Air France service, you probably don't want to read this post.

I am writing to express our disappointment with our 15 December Air France flight from Bangkok to Dublin (flights AF 0165 and AF 1478, booking reference 62RR4P). For my wife and I, this was our first experience with Air France and things actually started off very promisingly. The check in procedure was friendly and easy; the plane was relatively comfortable; and the first meal that was served after take off (BKK to CDG) was quite good. After the initial meal, we were actually quite impressed with Air France but things seemed to go downhill from there.

The first disappointment came about 6 or 7 hours after the initial meal. As you might expect, we started to get a bit hungry so I asked a flight attendant if any more food would be served. Her response was that sandwiches and other food had been available on a "self serve" basis throughout the flight and that the announcement had been made earlier. I quickly flashed back to the announcements earlier that I could not actually hear due the noise of the plane. By the time I had asked about food, there was no more food available and that the next meal would be served in a couple of hours.

The next disappointment was shortly after this when my wife had finished reading her book and tried to use her entertainment system only to find that the sound from the player came through as a high pitched ringing. As it was two thirds of the way through the flight, we did not bother to contact any attendant about this.

Alleged "meal" on Air France / Photo from Flickr by twowaystairs

By the time the next meal was served, about nine hours had passed since our previous meal so we were naturally quite hungry. The "meal" that came out was more of a snack than a meal. There were three small slices of chicken with a small dollop of slimy coleslaw, an inedible bun that had not been properly defrosted and a piece of poorly-named "Tasty" cheese. So after waiting so long to eat, essentially, I had three small slices of chicken and a tasteless piece of cheese. Not providing properly portioned meals for a flight of over twelve hours is unacceptable.

Soaked Luggage / Photo from Flickr by twowaystairs

The next, and probably biggest disappointment was with regards to our luggage. As we were disembarking the transfer bus from the terminal to the plane at Charles de Gaulle, we could actually see one of our bags sitting on a stationary conveyor belt for over a minute (that we could see) in the pouring rain. When we collected our luggage in Dublin, it was soaking wet. Thankfully, we only had clothing in our checked luggage and did not have anything particularly susceptible to water damage. Also, luckily, we were visiting family in Ireland and had the capacity to clean and dry our wet clothes but this is absolutely an unacceptable practice for an airline that endeavours to provide a reasonable level of service. This procedure does not bode well for our return flight when we will have fuller luggage after Christmas. 

Wet Clothes / Photo from Flickr by twowaystairs

Two weeks ago, I used the Air France online feedback form to try to provide this feedback but I there were not enough characters available in the input box to adequately describe our disappointment. Worse yet, the expected response time is a dismal four weeks. We fly back to Bangkok tomorrow and, as I hadn't yet heard a response, I decided to call customer care. To be perfectly honest, it's a terribly uncomfortable thing to call to complain to someone. Typically, I would rather just take my business elsewhere but in this case, we're still tied to flights tomorrow that we're really not looking forward to so I thought I called to give Air France the opportunity to show some kind of gesture to make things better before we fly because after that flight, the likelihood of us wanting to book with them again is minimal.

The woman at customer care was friendly but, in this situation at least, fairly useless. I asked her what Air France could do to make this situation better before our flight tomorrow and she asked me what I had in mind. Not knowing of many other possibilities, I suggested that if there were upgraded seats available, that that would be appreciated. She said this wasn't possible so I asked her what was possible (as I am not an airline customer care expert). She repeatedly replied that an upgrade wasn't possible (which, to be fair, I understood the first time she had explained it) and that I should submit a complaint form because "Air France loves to hear feedback like this." I seriously doubt that Air France actually loves to hear this feedback but, regardless, it was very clear that any possible solution is still weeks away and will be long beyond the time in which Air France has the opportunity to make us feel better about flying with their company. Even if Air France refunds us some money, it would still be too late to improve our flying experience with them.

I have given Air France enough opportunities to make some show of good faith while we are still a captive audience but after our flights tomorrow, I'm afraid that it is unlikely that any gesture from Air France will be significant enough to persuade us book with them again in the future. Here's hoping that I'm wrong.

Why You Should Do The "Photo a Day" Challenge

Photo from Flickr by twowaystairs

In 2011, I was starting to get more familiar Twitter and noticed people that were posting daily photos. I also had a Facebook friend that was doing the "Photo a Day" challenge too. I remember really enjoying the posts and seeing what each day's photo would bring. It wasn't just about the photo but it was a about the person; getting to know them and how they view the world, even if I was twelve time zones away. So my wife and I both decided that we would undertake The Challenge in 2012 and we're both happy that we did despite the fact that neither of us are likely to continue into with The Challenge in 2013. Here's what I learned from the Photo a Day Challenge.

Photo by: @fatmumslim

The Rules

For those of you who aren't fully familiar with the Photo a Day Challenge, the name mostly sums it up. Every day, you share a photo that you have taken. That's it. Other than that, the rules are up to you. Some people focus on the photography aspect and look for cool, interesting images each day or use it as a way of improving their photographic skills. Some people set specific challenges for things to look for each day (see example to the right). Some people look for an image that tells a story of their day. When 2012 started, neither Caroline nor I knew which approach we would take but we both kind of fell into the latter approach. The Challenge became a kind of daily chronicle; an online diary of our year. For me, this has been the best reason for doing The Challenge.

Why I Liked The Challenge

The most rewarding reason for doing this challenge, for me, turned out to be a reflection on the year. It's amazing, looking through pictures from January or even July or August, how distant some of those events already seem. When I look back through the whole Flickr set from 2012, I get to see just how much I do in a year. The people I have visited or have visited me; the places I've travelled; the events I've attended; there is a lot crammed into a year. I have never kept a diary in my life but this photographic diary is a great way of keeping track of a year. The direct offshoot of sharing this diary online is that I can keep my family, friends and followers abreast of what's happening in my life on a regular basis.

Photo from Flickr by twowaystairs

Social media has made it so much easier to keep in touch with friends and family in a relatively unobtrusive way. Being a Canadian, living in Thailand, and having lived in many other countries, I have a wide range of family and friends in different time zones so this has been a good way of keeping people up to date with what I'm up to. It can become a conversation starter too. Often this year, whether in person or through an online video call, someone would say something like, "I saw you went to 'X restaurant' last week. How was that?" or "I couldn't believe our school had a typewriter set up for the students either." It gave people something to talk about.

Another, less expected aspect of The Challenge that I really appreciated was that it got me to step outside of my day and take a different perspective. It made me consider the events of my day, even the seemingly mundane aspects, to try to find a story. It helped to take you off of the auto-pilot of daily life. Knowing that I had to summarize my day through an image really helped me to stop and reflect on the often overlooked magic that goes into a seemingly ordinary day.

The Challenges of The Challenge

I remember when my Facebook friend, Mark Cunningham, reached the end of his year of daily photos and declared that he wasn't going to continue the following year. As an entertained follower, I was quite disappointed. His posts were interesting and insightful, often capturing the quirkiness of the everyday, so I didn't understand why he wouldn't want to carry on. As I now reach the end of my year-long challenge, despite the great reasons for undertaking The Challenge, I can now see why Mark didn't continue posting daily photos. It's probably the same reason that I will not continue with this specific endeavour in 2013. As rewarding and and insightful as it has been to partake in The Challenge, the fact of the matter is that it is in fact challenging.

Photo from Flickr by twowaystairs

By year's end, I will have posted a photo each day for 366 days. Living in Thailand, and being a teacher with a reasonable amount of holiday time means that there were many days when it was easy to find an interesting photo to tell the story of that particular day. A long weekend escape to the beach practically takes its own photo. However, when you're going to work, teaching, day-in, day-out for weeks straight, it becomes difficult to find an interesting image to sum up your day. Some days, you end up with a forgettable picture like the one to the left. It's almost sad to think that as early as the 16th of January, this was the best image I could conceive of to summarize my day.

Photo from Flickr by twowaystairs

Closely related to the inability to find a worthy image for a given day, at the other end of the spectrum, are the amazing days when one photo or image just doesn't capture the day. Or I may have taken an interesting image but when it came time to choose an image for that day, another image gave a better representation of my day so the interesting image was relegated to live anonymously in the gallery of my phone. For example, I remember on a drive down to Hua Hin, we saw this truck (pictured, right) stacked ridiculously high with crates. I love little Thai vignettes like this that show cultural differences but when it came to the end of the day, as amusing as I found this scene, it wasn't the best representation of my day and was ultimately forgotten until I started writing this blog post and was looking for an example of a neglected photo.

Finally, as I said earlier, I really enjoyed how The Challenge forced me to step outside of myself a bit to try to view my day as a spectator; as someone who would get a glimpse of my life in a single image. This allowed me to see the finer details in my day-to-day but it also meant that I would go photo "hunting" sometimes for fear of reaching the end of the day without having taken a daily photo. I would take pictures of fairly mundane things that could be woven into a short summary of my day but then, later that day, I would take a better picture and the more mundane picture would be unnecessary. Sometimes though, I would take that some mundane picture the following day again as a backup. While I was getting to see the smaller elements of my day, taking pictures like this to simply satisfy the need for a photo a day kind of defeated the purpose for me and, on those days, took away the fun of The Challenge.

Photo from Flickr by twowaystairs

Summary


For 2013, I will not be continuing my photo-a-day challenge but I endeavour to maintain the spirit of The Challenge; to continue to see the magic in the daily grind. I'm going to take a more post-as-I-go approach to my photo sharing with the hope of posting more interesting images as I encounter them. I may post a regular (weekly/bi-weekly) update on this blog to maintain a bit of chronicle of the year.

For those of you that haven't attempted The Challenge, I recommend you try it for at least one year of your life. It's a great way to really gain a self-perspective of just what your life is all about on a day-to-day basis. To those of you that continue The Challenge beyond one year, I commend you as I can attest to the fact that it is indeed a challenge.