Air France’s New A350 Business Class Suite Review (Bulkhead Seat) NYC to Paris

Rating: 4.5/5 (Best Business Class Hard Product I’ve Experienced, Good Food, OK Service)

Route: EWR-CDG AFR63 (depart 4:30PM arrive 5:15AM+1 Day)

Price: 95,000 FlyingBlue Miles + $447 (note: this is the price for both this flight AND my Vietnam Airlines Flight from Paris to Hanoi in Business Class)

Introduction

This was my first segment on my winter trip to Southeast Asia. I was super excited for this flight specifically because this would be my first time trying out Air France’s new business class product, which ended up being the nicest business class seat I’ve ever experienced (I’ve reviewed their older business class in a previous post).

To pay for this booking, I transferred 79,000 Amex MR points that had a 20% transfer bonus to Air France FlyingBlue at the time, and the total price came out to 95,000 FlyingBlue miles + $447 in taxes and fees. This is the upper limit of what I’d consider a good award redemption in fees. However, I thought it was worth it for 20+ hours in business class.

My final itinerary was as follows:

2/15 Air France 63: EWR – CDG (4:30pm > 5:15am +1)

2/16 Vietnam Airlines 18: CDG – HAN (1:10pm > 6:30am +1)

Ground Experience at Newark (EWR)

The lowlight of the experience, as you’d expect, is everything related to the ground experience at Newark Airport. Air France has an interesting relationship to Newark Airport. Air France only operates one nonstop flight per day between EWR and Paris, compared to 6-7 nonstop flights per day between JFK and Paris. However, they have signaled an expansion at Newark, as they’re planning to invest in their own lounge here (which is desperately needed).

Anyways, Air France flies out of Terminal B at Newark, which is serious need of an overhaul. There’s no dedicated precheck here, only “priority” vs non-priority. With Air France business class, you get priority, but even this took ~20 minutes for me to clear.

Lounge Access at EWR

Newark in general is a dead zone for airport lounge access. No priority pass lounges or bank lounges (Centurion, Chase, Capital One) currently operate at the airport. However, there are plans for Amex to open a Centurion Lounge lounge in Terminal A, slated to open in 2026.

With Air France Business Class, you currently receive access to the SAS business class lounge in Terminal B. I’m not doing a dedicated lounge review for this lounge because it was just bad – I’d rather just sit in the terminal, which is what I did after snapping a few pics. The lounge itself was fine and a bit outdated, but was completely overrun by people – every single seat was taken, screaming toddlers, the full luxury experience.

To be fair, I visited at ~3pm, which is peak time right before all the evening flights head out to Europe (including SAS’s own flight).

This lounge is not worth visiting if passing through here, so I wouldn’t buffer in extra time if you’re going through terminal B. Pretty soon, it was time to board our Air France A350 on this rainy February day.

Air France’s New A350s and How to Find Them

One reason to fly out of Newark is that Air France’s route to Paris from here is currently operated solely by an A350, vs a mix of A350s and 777s at JFK. This is important because Air France’s A350s are obscenely nice (some of the nicest cabins flying, period), whereas most of their 777s are quite … dated. See (HERE) for my review of their older 777 business class product, which is fine but nowhere close to being as good as their new one.

Air France’s A350 on this route features 292 seats:

48 Business Class Pods (Stelia Opera Platform) in a 1-2-1 configuration

32 Premium Economy (Collins Aerospace MiQ) in a 2-4-2 configuration

212 Economy (Safran Z300) seats in a 3-3-3 configuration

It’s important to note that Air France also operates a subfleet of 20 A350s that feature a different business class (Safran Optima), which is basically the same shell as United Polaris.

If you’re trying to find out which one your flight features, you’ll be able to tell by looking at the seat map. The newest planes will have business class pods in rows 10-14, whereas the older seats on the A350 (still nice, but not as nice) will stop at row 9.

Below is the smaller business class section I was seated in for my flight, which is located in rows 10 – 14.

How I Got The (Best) Bulkhead Seat with Unlimited Legroom

One quirk of the new Air France A350s is that they do not feature the airline’s famous La Premiere first class. However, they do feature 6 significantly nicer seats with insane legroom – all at the bulkhead. The seats are as follows: 1A, 1D, 1H, 1L, 10A, 10L.

Note that 10D and 10H do not have increased legroom and have the same amount of normal space as the rest of the seats.

Here’s the amount of space we’re talking. I could fit both my bags comfortably here and still had room to spare. I’m 6’2 for context.

These seats are available for reservation from FlyingBlue elites (Gold / Platinum) only. However, within 72 hours of check in, they become available for selection for free by anyone. These seats still showed as occupied up until 5 hours before my flight, so I’d make sure to refresh frequently if you want to fly in these extra space seats. I lucked out and was able to snag 10A. Every single seat in business class was occupied when I flew this route, so guessing someone bailed on the flight last minute. If you’re able to, would definitely try snagging one of the bulkhead seats as they offer what’s probably the most amount of room in business class on any product currently available on the market.

Air France A350 Business Class Seat & Service Review

On to the flight itself. Boarding was fairly quick in Newark, with business class & Air France elites boarding first.

The seat itself looks brand new, and features a lot of really cool tech.

Unlimited legroom:

You’ll find the winged seahorse thing everywhere:

What’s over the top is you can actually control the level of backlight of the seahorse emblem via the seats’ control tablet. Completely unnecessary but a nice touch.

The seat comes stocked with water and headphones:

The seat also features wireless charging for phone, which was convenient for not having to dig out my charger from my bag. You can just place your phone (or eligible tablets as well) onto the pad with the battery logo and it starts charging. Pretty cool.

The seat features a nice control tablet as well, and this tablet actually worked (unlike other airlines…) and was very responsive. You can control not just IFE from this tablet, but also watch shows, control seat lighting, call a flight attendant, and more. I just used the main screen for navigating on my flight, but it can be a bit of a reach unless you have long arms, just given how big the seat is. First world problems.

The seat controls for recline and bed mode can be controlled from the seat itself as well, in addition to the control tablet.

Shortly after doors closing, amenity kits were handed out. These are pretty basic, and feature some Clarins lotions and creams among the usual standard items (eye mask, toothbrush, etc).

Menus were then handed out, and this route features its “own” menu with NYC-Paris branding.

Air France consistently does a really good job with food, as you’d expect from the French. However, I’m sure catering in Newark wasn’t giving them a ton to work with.

Espresso and espresso-based drinks were available, which is awesome. And of course, lots of alcohol choices available.

The seat also came fully stocked with bedding, slippers, and a foam pillow. I didn’t sleep at all on this flight given the departure was a 4:30PM ET, which I don’t think even qualifies as a proper redeye since we land by the equivalent of midnight ET (around my normal bedtime).

De-icing took about an hour, which delayed us a quite a bit for pushback. I didn’t mind though, as we got to watch the Lufthansa 747-8 get ready for departure next to us.

During this time I tried going to the bathroom and was scolded by a flight attendant for doing so, and then 2 minutes later the captain went on the intercom saying all clear to use the bathrooms. I get it’s a safety thing but I wasn’t getting the ~warmest~ service vibes from the flight attendants on this flight.

We had some pretty heavy winter tailwinds today across the Atlantic, so the flight time for today was just 6 hours flat. If you’re flying transatlantic from the east coast of the US, I don’t think business class it worth a huge premium because of this in general. There’s hardly a chance of getting proper sleep as there’s only 3-4 “free” hours between meal service and ascent / descent where you have to be upright vs. lying flat in the seat. However, this was my first flight of the next ~24 hours of travel, so it was worth the premium to me in this case.

Shortly after takeoff our meal was served. The starter was a salad, cheesecake, and lobster. This looked better than it tasted – the lobster tasted like it was fished out of the waters outside of Newark port. Very rubbery. The salad and cheesecake were great, though.

For the main, I had the prime rib, which was delicious. Pretty much restaurant quality.

After the meal service, lights were turned off so folks could rest, or in my case, snag pictures of the cabin with night lighting, which I thought looked very cool in the dark.

My seat in 10A:

The front business class cabin at night:

After two movies, we were already getting close to Paris.

We had a brief breakfast service of fruit and yogurt, which was good.

And of course, an awkward timer – selfie:

Conclusion

This was hands-down the best business class seat I’ve ever experienced. The service was mixed (some flight attendants were nice, some were cold), which I think tends to be the theme with Air France, and with many European carriers broadly. The food was overall really good (minus that lobster, although Newark catering is probably to blame).

I wish I could have remained in this seat for my next (and longer) segment from Paris to Hanoi, but my next stop was the Air France Business Class Lounge for a nap and then on to Vietnam Airlines business class.