how bad is charles de gaulle airport?

[MelodyBL]

we are going barcelona via cdg on air france.I got the air though delta for 50.000 sky miles each.I have read bad horror stories about both airport,and airline. help!

 

 

The rumors are true. I was rerouted from Delta to Air France thru CDG in September 06. Came in at International arrival piers, had to clear customs because I was continuing on a flight to Athens. That was a 'sort of' clear, but getting back on a 'domestic flight' from CDG to ATH was a horror story. Not nearly enough connect time to get comfortable from International Arrivals to the EU departure area, a lot of stress, an asthma attack from running, and lack of understanding on the airport personnel make this high on my list of airports to avoid.

[Eclipsepearl]

The rumors are true. I was rerouted from Delta to Air France thru CDG in September 06. Came in at International arrival piers, had to clear customs because I was continuing on a flight to Athens. That was a 'sort of' clear, but getting back on a 'domestic flight' from CDG to ATH was a horror story. Not nearly enough connect time to get comfortable from International Arrivals to the EU departure area, a lot of stress, an asthma attack from running, and lack of understanding on the airport personnel make this high on my list of airports to avoid.

 

 

I worked at CDG airport for 2 1/2 years so if anyone has any questions about it, feel free to ask me. (I was also at Heathrow 6 and Frankfurt for a few months too).

 

The problem was that you were changing between T1, which are mostly foreign airlines and T2, which is mostly Air France. There is also a T3 for charters. CDG is not really divided by European and international flights, although inside T2, it sort of is. I don't recommend that as it's a horrible shuttle which is always too fast and takes ages to both arrive and get there. It's also really confusing as to which bus to take so you have to be careful.

 

The trick is to stay with the same carrier, or at least not change terminals. Even at T2, they'll put flights in weird places.

 

My worst story is the time they were boarding two flights at once. Since it was so busy, the AF staff just decided to stop boarding, closed out the Mulhouse (domestic but near Switzerland) flight and left 8 of us in the dust. They tried to tell me that I "missed" the announcement. Oh yeah? All eight of us?? Bonjour, see this uniform? I work for another carrier, here at CDG. I do this several times a month. I live here in France. I was sitting right here, speak French and am not deaf...

 

Ugh.

 

Fly through somewhere else if possible...