RE: Air France

I flew from Dulles to Milan on a Air France A380. Superb flight, very friendly air crew, great food - with champagne. You won't be disappointed. On time. I would not hesitate to use them again.

How are the seats? Narrow?? Short?? My husband and son are 6'1" and need some leg room. Did you book directly with the airline or through a search engine?

non stop flight from JFK to Rome

are you sure it's with Air France and not a partner airline e.g. Alitalia or Delta?

always book with the airline

my wife and I sat next to the emergency door, so there were no seats in front of us ...all the legroom we wanted. The A380 is the largest passenger plane in the world. Booked directly with Air France

You are right, it is operated by Alitalia. I'm trying to avoid Alitalia because of the uncertainty with the bankruptcy because we are going at the end of June. Plus, the reviews I've read about Alitalia are not great.

Question: If is operated by Alitalia but says it is an Air France or Delta as an example, does that mean if Alitalia does not have a buyer by the end of April then we would lose our tickets?

If you purchased the ticket with Air France, even if the flight is operated by their partner Alitalia, Air France will get you there, possibly by rebooking you via Paris CDG, if Alitalia is sold to the competitors Lufthansa or Easyjet (the two top contenders for the acquisition, with the German carrier more likely to prevail).

The Alitalia sale, however, is a long process and may not be over by June, therefore I don’t think you have much to worry about that. But as I said, your ticket is with AirFrance, therefore, if needed, they will rebook you on a fully AirFrance flight via Paris, or maybe even on a non stop operated by Delta, which is also their partner part of the SkyTeam.

Regarding AirFrance or Alitalia, I’ve flown with them dozens of times, with no complaints, and in fact I am going to Italy next with them. But, you know, if you search hard enough on the internet you will find complains about anything and anyone. The people who post reviews on the internet are generally people who are pissed at something that happened to them. People who have a regular flight with no complaints don’t bother to post.

We have flown Air France on two fairly recent occasions. AF is a partner with Delta, so we still get sky miles with Delta.
AF is a cut about the average airline with good service. Airline food is never that wonderful, but AF does better than most. Also, they keep the wine flowing.

Check seatguru.com to see the seat dimensions and spacing ( 'pitch') for the type of plane listed for the flight you are looking at.
Make sure you know what airline's plane it is. The airlines can choose different configurations for the same aircraft model

Book directly with the airline

We like Air France and always use it, if possible. We fly from San Francisco so it's a 10+ hour flight. I find the seats to be more comfortable on Air France (Economy class) than on Lufthansa, and the seats have 1 inch more leg room than Lufthansa. One inch doesn't sound like much but it makes a big difference on a long flight! Also the food is pretty good (for airplane food) and they give you Champagne or wine.

The food is better than on United, and the wine is free. Breakfast is a real meal. Configuration of seats is 3-4-3 so nobody gets stuck in the middle of a row of 5. They use terminal 2 at CDG which seems a little more difficult than terminal 1 to navigate at the end of a long flight.

How are the seats? Narrow?? Short?? My husband and son are 6'1" and need some leg room.

Air France Planes and Seat Maps:
https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_France/fleetinfo.php

We just flew AF for the first time - arr back SFO last weekend - en route to Florence. Would choose them again without hesitation. All four flights (two outbound, two returning) were on time. The food and cabin crew were a better experience than past United/Lufthansa (codeshare) Eur itineraries. The only wrinkle we experienced was changing planes at CDG, requiring switch from Terminal 2E to 2F (back thru security; removing shoes, liquids, laptop... just what you want after a ten-hour flight). As yours is a non-stop (JFK-FCO) itinerary, it's a non-issue but noting here for anyone else using AF/CDG as connection point from states. Factor in a little extra time (in addition to clearing Customs) for similar routes. The benefit though was having a 'normal' size aircraft (A320) for connection rather than a CRJ-type plane, as is the custom for Lufthansa connection flights to/from Frankfurt or Munich.

You may want to consider their Premium Economy seating. It costs a little extra, but your 6'1" travel partners will appreciate the roominess and legroom of those seats. I'm also 6'1" and was very comfortable in the PremEcon section... not quite Business Class but the next best thing.

The other posters are right: If you're flying Air France or any combo Alitalia/AF through CDG, allow at least 75-90 minutes to change. I had only 50 minutes once, and told the flight crew. A van actually met me and a few others at the gate, careened across the tarmac and got us into the other terminal. But we still had to go through security and passport control. I'm an EU citizen so I went through passport control really fast, but the Americans and Mexicans with me weren't so lucky. I had to wait for them, and I ended up missing the flight. AF rebooked on a later flight. In the end it meant a worse seat in the back of the plane, some inconvenience, and another beer in the CDG bar.