Flight bookings - thank you Air France!

Sometimes I love airlines. Case in point: booking flights to Europe (this was a while ago now). Problem number 1: I needed (vs. wanted) to fly on an Airbus A380 at some point on this trip. Problem number 2: I am flying back with my dad, who is flying premium economy. Solution: fly an airline that has premium economy on an A380. Simple right?

NOT!

I refuse to book on Qantas internationally, partly out of principle, and partly because they're so damn expensive. And we were flying into Paris, so the logical choice at the time was Air France. Decent prices for premium economy, plus decent layover options in Hong Kong and/or Singapore.

But back in early February, when I was looking at flights, the best way for me to get a flight on Air France's A380 was a short hop down to Melbourne, a flight up to Shanghai and then fly across to Paris. It wasn't ideal, but it got me on an A380 and the price stayed about the same.

Original flight options...

Not two days later, one of my plane-geek websites gave me some great news - Air France was to start a seasonal A380 service to Hong Kong! Beauty! A quick check back on Google Flights made the forward sector much nicer, with a direct flight to Hong Kong and an A380 on to Paris.

New flight options...

OK, so I have to fly Qantas to Hong Kong, where I have a 7-hour layover. At least I don't have to get up at an awful hour of the day just to get to the airport for my first flight.

So, in short, THANK YOU AIR FRANCE!

The return sector

The return sector also became much nicer with this news as well - Air France's premium economy is supposedly much nicer on the A380 than the 777. Our return back to Oz starts with an 11:30pm flight on an A380 out of Paris to Hong Kong. It's a short 2-hour layover in Hong Kong, where we board the Cathay Pacific flight to Brisbane, with a technical stop in Cairns.