Trip Report - Air France Business Class from Chicago to Johannesburg

In this post, we actually get started on our trip review. To set the stage, we got married on Saturday and left on Monday night for our honeymoon. Our flight left from Chicago O’Hare’s International Terminal 5. Our route would take us from Chicago to Paris, have a 12 hour layover and then continue on to Johannesburg. This would also mean two nights back-to-back on a plane.

This is part of a broader trip report and you can find the other installments below:

Flights from Chicago to Paris onward to Johannesburg, South Africa in Air France Business Class
South African Airways on inner country flights
4 days on safari in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve
A review of the Westin in Cape Town
Exploring Cape Town (sneak peak: Shark diving was a disappointment)
Emirates First class from Cape Town to Dubai and onward to New York – Part One
Emirates First Class Fun – Part Two

Our plan was to get on the plane in Chicago and get as much sleep as possible, so that we then could take advantage of the 12 hours in Paris exploring the city. We then would get on another overnight at 11pm Paris time for the 10 hours flight to Johannesburg.

As a funny side story, my parents would be on the same flight from Chicago to Paris, before connecting back home to Germany. When we had booked the trip, we hadn’t even considered that they might end up booking the same flight. They were happy to have found round-trip tickets for around $400, which is a fantastic deal. Thanks to our Priority Pass membership, through our Chase Sapphire Reserve credit we were able to use the Swissport lounge with them before the flight. While nothing extraordinary, you are able to have a few drinks, chips, some sweets and most importantly escape the crowds in the terminal.

The Flight

From an actual review perspective, I only experienced some of it. As mentioned before, since it was a late evening flight I had dinner before getting on board. I kept it to a glass of champagne before take-off.

Overall the cabin was more worn and old. It is also set up in a 2-3-2 format, so at the window seat you won’t have direct access to the aisle. For this overnight flight, it was not an issue for us, but something to be aware of, especially when traveling solo. You would have to climb over that person if seats are in bed mode, if you want to use the bathroom.

Once in the air, I put the seat directly into bed mode. Unfortunately, Air France had angled seats on this route, so you were angled downwards somewhat. Maybe exhausted from the wedding activities, I didn’t have any problem sleeping for most of the flight. Elli, on the other hand, struggled more to get really comfortable.

As I skipped dinner I can’t comment on the actual dinner part, but had a delicious breakfast before landing. Obviously it included a croissant, as expected on a French airline.

A380 the second

After a full day of touring Paris we had our next flight from Paris to Johannesburg. The flight left close to Midnight and was operated by an A380. An A380 is a double Decker jet and we assigned ourselves in the middle of the cabin on the upper deck. It is interesting to board through a two-story jet bridge.

The layout was exactly the same as our flight the night before in a 2-3-2 seats set up. By the time we got on this flight we were exhausted and made our beds as soon as possible after take-off. The provided pillow and blanket did their job, but wish the pillow would have been bigger with more support.

Based on us maximizing sleeps there is not much more to this review.

Once we arrived in Johannesburg, we got through security very quickly thanks to expedited immigration for business class passengers. At the airport a representative of our safari organizer met us right at immigration. She provided us with all the necessary documents for our safari itinerary. She also insisted on walking us to our hotel for the day, which was only 100 yards across from the terminal.

How did I book these flights?

I booked these flights with Delta Skymiles. Air France is part of the Skyteam Alliance that Delta is part of as well. The cost was 95,000 miles plus $35 per person.

Booking these flights was fairly easy through the Delta website. We booked these about 11 months out to ensure award seats were available, as we knew it would be hard to fly to South Africa. If we wanted to take a more direct route on Delta through Atlanta, it would have cost us twice as many miles.

Cash Cost of flights:

At the time of booking Delta would have otherwise charged us $9,800 for two tickets.

How did I accrue the miles?

Elli accrued these miles through her work travel. While living in New York, Delta was her preferred airline. With multiple flights a week, it took her probably around a year to accrue these miles.

Summary:

The seat, while not the best was comfortable for me and I got some solid sleep on each leg. The food that I did consume, was tasty. The cabin crew was polite and did a good job with people’s preference of wanting to sleep most of the time. I would certainly fly Air France again, but would try to avoid these this version of cabins and seats. Air France is updating their business class across their fleet and chances are you will find a newer and better product going forward.