[Idyllchat] Charles DeGaulle Airport

[Jerry Clancy]

At 11:07 AM 4/13/2007, Ed Comer wrote:

>Here is the section of my previous IdyllChat 
>posting about our 2006 Tuscany trip that dealt with CDG:
>
>TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS
>Avoid Paris' Charles de Gaulle International 
>Airport (CDG) for your connections! I repeat - 
>avoid Paris' CDG airport for your connections. 
>It is the airport from hell. One hour between 
>flights is a very, very tight connection. ...
>Without Harriet's emergency instructions and 
>telephone help it would have been far, far 
>worse. By the way, Air France delivered my 
>wife's luggage to La Canonica the following 
>afternoon and she only had to wear my clothes for the first day.

If there is a bright spot, it's that they 
fortunately lost her luggage. You probably don't look good in skirts.

I agree that Charles de Gaulle is the airport 
from hell. I've had almost nothing but bad 
experiences there and sometimes long for the old 
days when everyone went into Orly, which is south 
of the city. The last time at CDG it was raining 
cats and dogs and everyone got soaked slowly 
boarding the tarmac bus. There were bus delays 
with all doors completely closed with no A/C and 
totally steamed windows -- everyone was 
complaining. Then the mad rush to make the plane 
navigating terminals and corridors with hand 
luggage. I was soaking wet and exhausted as I 
boarded at the last minute and we were long past Ireland before I dried out.

The prior time at CDG the garbage and food 
handlers were on a wildcat strike (such strikes 
are commonplace in Paris). The meal service, such 
as it was, on the plane consisted of a cold 
platter of paté, some cheese and some piece of 
unidentified, cold fish. My wife eats neither 
paté nor fish and starved for 7 hours. Following 
dinner the stewards incredulously refused to 
collect the trays, stating their sympathies with 
the strikers, so the trays and open containers of 
food lay strewn about the cabin floor for the 
entire smelly flight to NYC. The flight from hell from the airport from hell.

If your destination is other than somewhere in 
France, I would recommend a difference gateway 
airport, such as Heathrow, as well as a 
difference carrier. After having gone in or out 
of there dozens of times over the years I can 
only remember one really bad delay due to, you 
guessed it, a wildcat strike by the French air 
controllers that was preventing our flyover of 
France on the way to Milan. So, instead we 
enjoyed our bottles of wine on the tarmac 
awaiting clearance, courtesy British Airways.

Jerry