Really Good: Air France A350 New Premium Economy Review Paris CDG to New York JFK

Rating: 4/5 (Great seat and service, food was mediocre but overall a very comfortable ride across the Atlantic)

Route: CDG-JFK (depart 8:30AM arrive 10:30AM)

Price: $671 for roundtrip economy (+$302 for one-way upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy on this flight, so $973 total) – note I only review my return leg, not the outbound here since I slept my entire flight to Paris. I tried this route in reverse a few months prior in business class which was one of the best flights of my life

Introduction

For a long weekend trip, I was heading out to Paris to hang out with family. While short duration trips like this are a bit tough on the body, there’s no excuses to not take advantage of the fact that there are literally dozens of nonstop flights between NYC and Paris each day. Getting between NYC and Paris takes just slightly longer than a standard transcontinental trip between NYC and SF / LA, a pretty routine trip for a lot of people. I recently flew Air France from NYC > CDG in business class which was one of the best flights of my life, so I was super excited to try out their A350’s premium economy offering today.

My trip started at JFK, where I got to try out the VIP One Lounge to breeze through security (my review HERE). Utility-wise, this is probably the most useful priority pass lounge in existence. Not that that’s a particularly high bar, at least in the US. I didn’t review my flight from JFK > Paris since I slept most of it and it was in Air France’s older 777 economy, which was nothing special.

However, I was super excited for this flight, since this was my first time trying out Air France’s new premium economy product, where the seats have real recline. Their old premium economy product was pretty terrible, in that the “recline” feature was just sliding back within your own seat – the seat itself didn’t move. I legitimately found the regular economy seats more comfortable, because at least they just left me with a stiff back vs. a disformed one.

My original ticket was booked in economy roundtrip, but I decided to pay a fairly reasonable cash upgrade for the return segment of $302 USD. Eastbound in winter is definitely not worth it, because the gulf stream is very strong at this time and eastbound flights are quick – sometimes less than 6 hours. However, the opposite is true westbound, where flights slow down significantly over the Atlantic due to strong headwinds, and durations are usually around 8 hours to get from France to the East Coast of the US.

In this post, you’ll find:

Getting To & Around CDG Airport

Today, my flight was on Air France 2, which is the first NYC-bound departure from CDG for the day. I really, really like this flight because you leave Paris at a reasonable time (8:30AM), and you land in NYC at a reasonable time (10:30AM), and then you have the whole day. I actually worked the full day once in NYC, which is kind of a challenge but do-able with some caffeine.

Anyways, I Ubered from where I was staying in Paris (16th arrondissiment). Uber is widely available in Paris and really convenient. I left for the airport at 6am and made it to CDG in 30 minutes, given there was minimal traffic this early in the morning. An uber was around 40 euros, which is fine given that was my only reasonable transport option this early in the morning.

My flight was out of Terminal 2 this morning, where the majority of Air France departures head out of.

Air France premium economy passengers receive access to Sky Priority security, so I was through security in about 2 minutes.

My flight today was departing out of the K halls at Terminal 2, which was great because it means I didn’t have to take the people mover to get between terminals. CDG gets a lot of hate in general for being poorly designed, which I think is overblown. If you’re connecting between terminals, then definitely agree on the poor design. However, if originating here, then it’s a solid airport in my opinion. The terminal 2 Hall K area is quite nice:

Hall K was looking very aesthetic this morning at sunrise:

Boarding & Seats

Around 45 minutes before scheduled departure, we began boarding.

Premium economy passengers were group 2, directly behind Air France elites & business class.

This Air France A350 features 32 Collins Aerospace MiQ seats in a 2-4-2 configuration in the premium economy cabin. These are a huge upgrade from their terrible previous “shell” seats in premium economy which did not have real seat recline. I was seated in 15B for today’s flight.

The premium economy cabin feels fairly intimate:

And here was my seat for today:

I specifically wanted the bulkhead so nobody was leaning their seat back into me, and there’s tons of legroom. Enough so that there’s no awkward shuffle if your seatmate needs to get up.

The seat recline and footrest can be controlled from the side panel within the seat:

In premium economy, each seat comes stocked with a mini amenity kit. These are actually pretty much the same as the ones passed out in Business class (my review of Air France A350 business class HERE), but with a cheaper-feeling bag.

Flight and Service Review

Pushback was right on time. My favorite part about Air France’s new aircraft (A350s and some of their 777s) is that the planes come equipped with live cams, so you can view your aircraft moving live, which is better than any TV show or movie to me at this point.

After a quick taxi we were airborne:

The A350 is one of my favorite aircraft to fly on, because the cabin experience is legitimately noticeably more comfortable than older aircraft. The plane is dead quiet, especially once at cruise. Also, the lower cabin humidity does make my sinuses noticeably more comfortable after a long haul flight.

After around 30 minutes, we had reached cruise altitude and the first meal service began. The meal was fine but nothing special. The menu is identical to that of economy, the only difference is metal cutlery and glassware, which I don’t really care that much about to be honest. Air France catering is pretty great out of CDG, but again the premium economy meal wasn’t very premium. In my experience, for premium economy, you pay for the seat, not really anything else.

After the meal, it was time to relax for a few hours. I re-watched Barry.

Nice views over the Atlantic:

Around 2 hours from landing in NYC, we were served our pre-arrival snack, which consisted of a “sandwich” with some sort of paste on it, and a yogurt drink. The sandwich was honestly quite gross and disappointing.

One thing to note is that service was generally quite good throughout this flight. European service can be hit or miss in general, but still better on average than their US counterparts (although not a high bar, to be fair).

And last but not least, a quick bathroom check:

Conclusion

All in all, I really enjoyed Air France’s premium economy product on their A350 from Paris to NYC. I love flying on the A350 in general, and a bulkhead seat in a comfy new hard product is hard to beat.

The only downside was that the food was underwhelming and the same as what’s offered in economy, which is common in premium economy. But I probably got unlucky and just got a worse-than-usual catering out of CDG today.