Air France: The Worst

Air France is one of the worst airlines ever. It has high accident rates, low ratings from passengers, and extraordinarily low on-time rates.

According to Eurocontrol, Air France’s flights departed late a full 29% of the time in the summer of 2024, worse than their competitors, KLM, SAS, and Aer Lingus. In February 2021, they had a cancellation rate of 11.8%, compared to competitor British Airways with just 4.3%. 

According to data from Jimmy Huang, a 7th grade aviation fanatic, Air France had by far the most accidents out of 44 airlines analyzed, with 75 accidents (a flight in which at least one person died or the plane was severely damaged). The second place airline, American Airlines, had 45. Air France accidents resulted in over 1,300 deaths, such as the infamous 2009 Air France 447 accident, which was largely caused by pilot error, resulting in 228 deaths. Another example, from 2005, is Air France 358, when the pilots did not abort the landing despite using up nearly half the runway without touching down. They also did not fully power the reversers until 12 seconds after touchdown. These mistakes resulted in a runway overrun, demolishing the plane (though it didn’t cause any deaths). There have been countless other incidents, but what most of them share is the airline’s bad safety practices. 

Finally, Air France gives passengers a terrible experience. According to AirlineRatings.com, Air France’s passenger experience is rated 3.6/10, compared to British Airways and Turkish Airlines, with 6/10 and 8.6/10 respectively. Air France is even worse than the budget airline Ryanair, rated 4.8/10, even though Air France’s tickets were on average 9 times as expensive! Similarly, on Tripadvisor, just 24.1% of Air France passengers rated the airline “Excellent,” compared to 31.7% for Lufthansa. Many complain that Air France does not properly respond to passenger feedback, often not giving proper refunds or rebookings, and sometimes even outright denying the flight existed in the first place! Air France’s hub, Paris CDG, is also considered one of the worst airports to transfer in, as it doesn’t have helpful signage, is cramped, and has long lines for customs. 

In conclusion, one should not fly Air France due to their terrible safety, timeliness, and customer service. Instead, their competitors will offer you a trip where one is significantly less likely to have their flight delayed or canceled, be in a plane crash, or get frustratingly bad customer service.