Air France La Premiere (B777-300ER from Paris to Dubai)

Flight Details:

Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER

Aircraft registration:

Route: Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport - Dubai International Airport

Flight numbers: AF662

Seat: 1A

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Air France’s First Class ‘La Premiere’ is basically like the creme de la creme. It really is the most exclusive and expensive first class on average in the world.

With Air France marketing their first class as the most exclusive in the world and the price matches, it's very hard not to go in with insane expectations.

Late last year, I flew La Premiere, and let me spoil something for you, it is not good enough. That is true in several aspects, but there is one thing that happens that is unacceptable, something that simply cannot happen on a flight of this caliber so let me talk you through my whole experience.

GROUND

My whole experience starts at London Heathrow where I have to catch a short flight across the Channel to Paris. Despite it only being an hour long flight, this flight is still a part of my La Premiere ticket and therefore entitles me to the ‘full experience’.

Prior to arriving at Heathrow for my flight, I had no idea whether or not the famous ground services would extend to our connecting flight from Heathrow to Paris, so as we headed to check-in I was pleased to see it was.

After check-in is completed, we get an escort from check-in through security to the lounge, then they escort us from the lounge at our desired time to the aircraft. This is not available on even the world's best airlines.

Of all the elite airlines (Qatar Airways, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, ANA) none of them have this type of ground service in first class. It's only Air France, Lufthansa and Swiss. But Air France, I think, does it at an even more premium level.

Here’s a great perk if you are a Flying Blue member. I'm currently a Flying Blue Platinum member which means I was allowed to bring 10 pieces of checked-in luggage at 32 kilos each. That’s a crazy luggage allowance and if you are, for whatever reason, looking to take a lot of stuff overseas - this could save you a bit of money.

So, a quick hop across the English Channel later, we are landing at Paris Charles de Gaulle.

Immediately when disembarking, we are met in the jetway by our private escort of the day.

We are taken to the exclusive entrance down to ‘our car’. This is where the La Premiere experience truly sets itself apart from other first-class products. Even unlike Lufthansa, who pick you up in a luxury car from bus gates, Air France picks you up at all gates to drive you to the La Premiere lounge.

I know absolutely nothing about luxury cars. My focus is on the sky, not on the ground, okay? But even I can tell this transfer is something else. From an A220 to a Porsche Cayenne, it’s not a bad start to the day!

Immediately upon entering the lounge, we're offered a look at the private suites, you know, in case we want to rent one. These opened earlier in 2024 and cost 800 euros per person for three hours.

You can imagine my reaction walking around trying to pretend I could afford that. Don't get me wrong, I think these suites are nice and I'm sure that's pennies to some people who fly a La Premiere, especially celebrities who value privacy. And the Air France First Class lounge is full of them!

But the value maximizer inside me feels like surely some things must be a waste of money regardless of how much you have.

I originally planned on recording quite a bit in the lounge but it's so quiet, you would not only hear a needle drop, you would hear a feather drop. To my surprise, the staff all seemed happy for me to record, which was great for me, but I'm not so sure how I feel about that for the other people given the lack of privacy.

This is the main sitting and dining room. Just off the side of this, there's another room where you can sit along the walls facing the center. Interesting.

My favorite part of the lounge is the toilets, which are really unique circular cubicles. To my distress, there is no sound isolation here, which makes using the toilet, shall we say, a little more stressful considering how quiet the lounge is.

Next to that, there are some shower suites with some pretty unique walls. Finally, at the very end of the lounge, there is a rest area. It's crazy to me that this was the only place to rest in the lounge before those private suites were opened earlier this year. I think it looks great, but if I was, I don't know, Justin Bieber, I probably wouldn't be like, ‘hey bro, this looks mad chill, let's sleep’.

While I'm doing this, Oscar is indulging in his 30-minute complimentary Sisley facial. The facials were one of the main reasons we booked a 5-hour layover, so I was initially disappointed when we arrived at the lounge and our escort said, “wait, you guys didn't pre-book your treatments?” He already knew it was our first time, but if he hadn't, that was proof. He seemed completely bewildered that I did not know I need to pre-inform the La Premiere phone line so let this be your lesson!

Thankfully, there were two slots available during these five hours and oh boy is it a nice experience. The Business Class Clarins facials are heavenly, but equally difficult to get. Oscar enjoyed it so much and I have to say it was the best facial I've ever had, not that I've had more than a handful, but seriously, wow.

While we were in the lounge, we decided to have breakfast. Everyone raves about the food in the lounge and considering I live to eat, I am excited.

We're offered a table by the buffet wall where they have 8 different brands of water. I grew up thinking water is water, so all these years of reviewing airlines have widened my horizon, but this? Wow. There are also some assorted cereals and sweets along this wall.

What are the menus like? Well, first of all, the drinks list.

In my opinion, it's cool they have non-alcoholic champagne and rosé. I think their juices sound really nice too.

Meanwhile, this is the lunch and dinner menu. If you don't like French cuisine, this lounge is not for you. I'd estimate the vast majority of people flying Le Premier are traveling to or from France rather than connecting.

So French food is the name of the game anyway. We start out ordering two iced coffees with oat milk, as well as some baguettes with oil and vinegar. An absolutely superior start to any meal, may I say.

For breakfast/lunch, I had the cook pot with vegetables and fruits - the only vegetarian option on the whole menu.

Sadly I was left disappointed… I expected these to be best vegetables I've ever eaten in my life. What I didn't expect was for the incredible ratatouille I had the previous month in the business class lounge to be far tastier.

But overall the lounge experience was lovely.

At this point we were about to hop on board and my expectations were so high. The ground experience up until this point had been absolutely amazing.

SEAT

Air France has a bunch of configurations on their 777-300ER, with this being the most special one, of course. There are four cabin classes on this premium heavy bird with a staggering 58 business class seats, which makes our four-seat La Premiere cabin feel even more special. I sat in 1A and Oskar sat in 1E.

Any seat in La Premiere is good, but for traveling solo, the ones by the windows are obviously preferable, especially since the partition between the center seats is quite small.

SEAT FEATURES

Oscar and I have our side of the cabin to ourselves, so we decide to check out all the different features. I'm not sure what the point is of the privacy partition when you have floor-to-ceiling curtains, but why not, right? The partition separating the center seats, on the other hand, thank goodness the passenger in that seat didn’t show up.

As far as the curtains go, it is probably the best element of Air France Le Premiere, in my opinion. It gives a feeling of an incredible amount of space because they go all the way up to the ceiling. So you have a lot of privacy without feeling boxed in since it's a soft material.

Beside the overhead bins, your main storage is in a locker below the leg rest which is a great little spot to put things.

Fifteen minutes after liftoff, my phone is almost out of battery at this point, so I look around for the charging port, which I find in a surprisingly dirty looking side bin. Which multimillionaire made such a mess in here, I wonder?

Speaking of multimillionaires, here are our probably very expensive Denon headphones.

Overall, I do love the aesthetic of this seat. I think it's really understated chic/luxury.

When it is in bed mode, it is like heaven! With the sunset outside, two plush pillows, a thick mattress pad, a cooling yet substantial duvet, it was the most comfortable place I've literally ever been in my life.

When it got a little darker, I also got to enjoy one of my favorite touches in any airline seat, the little mood light with an Air France logo print.

I was a little disappointed that there weren’t any individual air vents though.

FOOD

It was time to check out the menu but sadly this was where things started going ever so slightly downhill. I must say that the physical appearance of this menu is so elegant and classy.

The contents highlight the drawbacks of only having a cabin with four seats, though. Compared to Emirates A380, which has a crazy 14 first class seats, you simply cannot load as many options since there aren't enough people to make it worthwhile. On this same route, Emirates offers 7 different appetizers, 5 mains, and 4 desserts.

Even stranger, today's flight is to Dubai. I would have thought it's a necessity to mark the dishes that are halal on a route like this? These are of course absolutely next dimension first world problems so removed from anything that's important but at the same time, having something like halal markings seems so basic.

Along those lines, apparently there also isn't an allergen list on board - which proves to be a problem.

Before long we discover that our special meals have not been catered correctly. Welcome to Devastation Station. I was being a little dramatic, but then again, this is supposed to be the world's best first class, so let's see how they handle it.

It turns out, our La Premiere flight attendant and the purser don't want to handle it. To my surprise, they just say, “sorry, we can give you a salad”.

Given that I review airlines full time, this has happened a dozen times to me over the years. Never in first class, but still, every single time, even in economy, the crew has found a solution. Whether from the crew meals or from another cabin class.

Virgin Atlantic gave me a business class meal in economy when this happened, Singapore Airlines gave me a crew meal in economy when this happened, and Q Suite, they forgot my meal during COVID, so the crew assembled an assortment of appetizers into one of the tastiest dishes I've had on a plane. The point is, there is plenty you can do about it if you want to, but it helps to have an allergen list handy.

If you don't have a special dietary preference, you may not care about this or find it unimportant, but I would definitely argue that you should care about how an airline deals with things when they go wrong.

So Oskar and I, not wanting to just eat salad, suggested to the crew that we do a taste comparison. Our flight attendant thinks the caterers loaded the regular vegetarian menu option for us erroneously, instead of our requested vegan meals so we decide there's only one way to find out - taste them side by side.

Unfortunately for us they tasted exactly the same and there was nothing on the actual dish to indicate it was different (i.e. VGML) so we assume our meals just never made it on board in the first place. Sadly for us, since there's no indication that it is our meal, we can't take the risk because I don't think Air France would like to know what happens after we have that amount of dairy after not having it for eight years. The sadder part is after this, the crew sort of seems to just check out from this point on.

They stop offering us any drinks and we have to ask to try a few more things off the menu because they don't suggest it. Neither the purser nor our flight attendant seem to have any training on how to handle situations like this in La Premiere. So they just say over and over again, as soon as you land, you'll be contacted by customer support.

In the end we end up doing a bit of an improvised meal from what they have on the menu. So we start with the tomato and melon gazpacho, alongside some beautiful oils and vinegars. And of course, being France, we have the biggest bread basket ever.

Next up, the appetizer from our special meal, which thankfully made it on board.

After that, it is time for an improvised salad from the selection on the menu.

Finally, we're offered a look at the desserts from the menu. Again, weirdly, we have to remind the flight attendant that we don't eat dairy, and obviously both desserts contain that, but at least we have these berries…

Stunning little bowls, right? But don't look too close. Some of the berries are moldy. This creamy looking thing is thankfully part of our special meal and tastes very nice.

Compared to what I got the month before in Air France Business Class out of Paris, I feel a bit conflicted? The whole dining process ends up taking a lot longer than expected too.

When it comes time for the pre-landing meal things go from bad to worse with this wrap.

Don't you also love the little sauce in a plastic container? Oh, and the English muffin with no filling looks like just what I need. And this fruit salad, delish. Definitely the best, most premium airplane meal I've ever had… not.

The funny thing is, even after they forgot our main course before, I was like a little... I was fine with the food situation, like obviously not blown away but happy.

But the Tesco Meal Deal situation just wasn’t it for a $10,000 flight.

AMENITIES

Before take-off the sole flight attendant working La Premiere comes by to hand out our amenity kit and pajamas. The whole presentation was unbelievably elegant.

Waiting on our seat, we had a shoe bag along with some standard looking slippers, with some socks tucked inside. A nice touch, I thought.

Here is our amenity kit from La Premiere. Inside we get the standard things such as a pen, a comb, earplugs, eye mask as well as some Sisley beauty products and a headphone cover.

I have to say I think I will keep this amenity kit forever. This will be one of the only tangible memories from the world's most exclusive first class that I get to keep.

Late in the flight, I remember I haven't tried the pajamas, so I rushed to the bathroom and then realized they were way too small. Thankfully, our flight attendant has a spare set in my size. But as she brings that one, she takes my old one. I ask what she's going to do with it and she informs me she is going to throw the small ones out…

TOILETS

Impressively, there are two lavatories on board for four seats and even though you share them with pilots and crew, I was lucky and did not wait once to use the toilet.

The bathrooms were standard with all the usual features, as well as some Sisley products.

PRICE

I want to give you an idea of just how much more expensive Air France La Premiere is than the competition. First of all, on this route, which I only flew because it's by far the cheapest Air France La Premiere route in the network, the prices are as follows:

You can fly Etihad's A380 apartments for almost half the price. Besides the Dubai route, prices are usually twice what you see here for La Premiere at a minimum. So I used an example to search of New York to Singapore where you can get tons of incredible airlines.

You can get everything from ANA to Japan Airlines first class to Singapore Airlines first class to Air France first class to Lufthansa and Swiss first class, Etihad Emirates, almost every airline competes on this route. So it's a great place to compare prices. So you could get the Etihad A380 apartment the whole way for $8,200 round trip.

You could fly Emirates for $13,000 round trip. ANA, if I recall correctly, is about $10,000 round trip. Korean Air is something around there as well.

Singapore Airlines goes up to $16,000 round trip. I think Lufthansa and Swiss were around that price as well. Then you have Air France at the top of the pack charging $20,000 round trip for that itinerary, the cheapest I could find.

So compare that $8,200 in Etihad's incredible A380 apartments or $20,000 for this. One more thing. To me, the highlight of this experience was, of course, the ground transfers. But they are just the same as any VIP services at any airports around the world. My point is, you can fly a much cheaper first class that might even be better on board and add VIP services at most airports while still paying less than you do for La Premiere. That gives you the La Premiere ground experience on any airline.

CONCLUSION

I guess there's one thing I can say in conclusion, and that is that when something is branded and priced as the ‘best in the world’ and people that you respect a lot also say it's the best in the world. When you finally experience it, I think it's almost impossible not to feel a little bit of disappointment in some aspects.

I think the feeling is when you've splurged the most you've ever splurged in your life, like I just did you almost expect perfection so it’s a bit disappointing when you don’t get it. But objectively, it was an absolutely incredible flight, regardless.

This truly was an impressive flight in the grand scheme of things. However, compared to Air France's impressive business class, when you consider the price of La Premiere, I don't think it offers enough value. Some of it comes down to the food for me, of course.

But then there are also things like the service, both in the lounge and on-board. I know some people love when the crew doesn't really bother them or go over the top. Some people also don't like being addressed by name or sir or madam.

Our flight attendant and the purser were lovely and eager to provide good service. But all I'll say is that if you want world class polished service, you're better off going with the likes of Singapore Airlines or ANA. Heck, I'd personally rather have the crew call me Mr. Gonzalez like I was on JetBlue rather than not being addressed at all.

Also, speaking of service, the crew promised the customer service would email me about the missing meals. After 30 days, I still had not heard anything from Air France, so I had to reach out to them. When I did, they offered me 20,000 points in compensation.

And keep in mind, I'm an Air France Platinum member, so I'll let you decide if you think that's adequate compensation or not. We all value points differently. But I'm glad they were willing to offer something.

All in all, I'm so glad I got to try La Premiere, but I don't feel any need or desire to splurge on this again, especially as I mentioned, when I can fly other premium products for so much less.