I know some of you are flying into Paris next year and with the price of airfare going up, I wanted to share my experience with this airline. L'Avion is a discount business class airline that flies between NY and Paris or Amsterdam. It recently merged with Open Skies and is now owned by British Air. I flew round trip to Paris on it over the XMAS holidays for $1450 and would like to offer a brief review.

It is a step down from business class air like Lufthansa or Continental but a step up from BA's World Class Plus. The plusses are: A very nice lounge with excellent food in Newark, easy check in, only 90 passengers, good leg room, comfortable wide seats, tasty food..but not the extravagance of normal biz class, good service, fast delivery of baggage, closeness of Orly to Paris, good pricing. Negatives are : there is a hefty change fee of $450 once ticketed if you get the best rate, the seats are the old fashioned business class seats-no flat bed or even inclined seats, mediocre entertainment system, food is just a step above economy though very tasty and two courses with wine served, you cannot check in until 3 hours before flight. Would I take it again? Yes, in a heart beat. It was very civilized.

Andi,
That is interesting. The only question is about no inclined seats. Do you mean not at all or just like regular coach?
Lynn

The seats are like old fashioned business class seats...they have the leg rests and lean back nicely. I meant that they aren't flat bed or inclined like Lufthansa which are fairly straight. The seats are like a barcalounger, so they you can't really curl up. You can stretch out but your legs are bent down.

Probaby would be fine for us we have never had the plush seats - we get just what you are talking about, Andi, on Delta for mega FF pts - I liked ANZ oxymoron flights - premium economy

Joanna they are probably similar to our Air New Zealand seats which were great!!

I think so Jim and it was nice flight -

Great info, Andi. Here is a link to their web. Looks real good. Thanks for sharing!

Open Skies has a slightly different model. They have two classes of service on each of their jets. One is first class and one is supposedly interchangeable with L'Avion with identical seats and service.

They ran a three day sale, which I couldn't take advantage of, since I had already bought my seats, which offered RT first class for $2200 and bus class for $1400. In retrospect, for a 6 hour flight, the business class seats were fine for the price differential.

You don't seem to have to buy your tickets too early. There were plenty of seats. Open Skies and L'Avion were just combined in December, so you can go out on one and back on the other.

To Paris from Orly, it cost about $27 euros, including luggage though it can cost more if there is traffic as it is meter run and it depends where you are going. It took about 45 minutes. I found it a very easy airport to navigate, Passport control was easy and luggage and taxi were a snap to navigate. I had never been through Orly before. Taxis accept credit cards if you ask them first.

Luggage restrictions were very lenient. I had two HUGE and heavy suitcases filled with gifts going out for friends and I refilled them with wine going home. I had no problems. I also had two carry-ons. The XMAS markets have loads of liquid food stuffs you may want to bring home, so you can comfortably do that,

You also get 125% or 150% BA miles for either of these airlines-more for Open Skies.