French bee delivers just enough honey in Premium to be worth it

Low-cost long-haul air travel is a tricky business. Offer too little and passengers won’t enjoy their experience and likely won’t return. Offer too much and your costs balloon, eroding your competitive advantage. After thoroughly enjoying Norse Atlantic’s Premium product across the Atlantic, I gave French Bee Premium Class a shot on the return trip to New York to see how it manages this balance.

French bee does not have an app but it does offer mobile check-in through its mobile web site. Because of the massive strikes and potential protests in France, I thought about going home early. But while the mobile site was able to price out that change, it refused to process it within six hours of the new departure from Paris Orly Airport.

Together with sister airline Air Caraïbes, French bee actually has a staffed ticket desk at Orly so I inquired about changing my ticket to the earlier flight for a EUR 250 fee with no fare difference. The only seat left in the Premium cabin was a middle seat in the first row. I accepted.

At the check-in desk, however, the staff at the Premium Class counter demanded an additional EUR 80 for the seat before check-in could proceed. I was being forced to pay for it despite being the only seat left on board, and one I had no desire to select. The agent relented and begrudgingly issued me a boarding pass after I pushed back a bit.

French Bee operates out of Orly Terminal 4. The terminal is beautiful but it is undergoing a bit of a renovation at the moment.

I experienced no lines at security or immigration, which French bee Premium passengers can bypass anyway with priority access to both.

However, those looking for food or beverages before boarding aren’t going to be happy. There simply isn’t much of anything open right now.

Boarding began more than an hour before the departure time, but was struck by the seemingly unavoidable European phenomenon that is “boarding not boarding.”

Premium Class and priority passengers can utilize a second jet bridge leading to the front of the aircraft, which I appreciated. But I didn’t appreciate the 15 minutes of standing around waiting to actually board.

On board I stored my bags and settled into the middle seat of the first row.Thankfully, a couple in both aisle seats wanted to sit together and offered to trade an aisle seat for my middle seat — an offer I was more than happy to accept.

A welcome drink service of juice or bubbly was offered, as was a small amenity kit. These small perks were not offered on my earlier experience in Norse Atlantic’s Premium cabin.

After a bit of a delay pushing back due to the national protests we were on our way to Newark.

This particular Airbus A350-900 — the oldest A350 in commercial service — is equipped with a whopping three external cameras. I would have loved to watch the action during takeoff and landing, but bulkhead row passengers must keep their entertainment monitor stored in the armrest, so I was unable to view it until shortly after takeoff.

The entertainment system was loaded with a healthy selection of movie content, but not enough to keep me interested for the entire flight.

Expecting this to be the case, I had loaded my trusty iPad with plenty of movies and draped it over the monitor for a good portion of the flight. The under-seat AC power outlet and USB-A port in the monitor kept my various devices charged up.

While I had enjoyed a terrific meal on the Norse-operated outbound, the opposite held true for French bee. The side dishes and cheese plate were great, but the main course was subpar. French bee’s website suggested there would be a nice choice on board, but the actual options were chicken or pasta.

The digital menu read “chicken in Colombo sauce, mashed potatoes, coconut milk” but I would call it “chicken chunks in brown sauce with flat mashed potato.” This entree would have felt right at home in the economy cabin of any generic airline.

The pre-arrival meal was equally disappointing. It constituted a plastic-wrapped bread roll with processed spread, and a peach flavored yogurt. Seriously disappointing!

Having been spoiled by the lux premium seat on Norse earlier in the week, I also felt let down by the premium seat on French Bee. The seat is quite basic in most rows, and more closely resembles a slightly higher-end economy seat than a true premium economy seat.

Most rows only have a footrest attached to the forward seat while the bulkhead row has a leg rest that may benefit some shorter passengers.

When you compare French bee’s Premium Class cabin to the super dense 3-4-3-configured economy class cabin on this A350, the reason for booking Premium becomes clear.

French bee isn’t competing with the premium seats of other airlines; it’s simply offering a way out of its incredibly dense economy cabin. For the modest upsell into Premium, this is a bargain that I’d take again and again.

One feature that French bee offers but Norse does not is Wi-Fi, but maybe it shouldn’t.

There are precious few airlines still rationing their connectivity out in packages measured by the megabyte, and French bee is one of them. It offers several plans ranging from 25 MB for $4, up to 250 MB for $29. I gave the lowest end package a shot and my 25 MB was gone after managing to only send a message or two.

This offering is functionally useless and serves only to frustrate passengers and is wholly incompatible with modern smartphone use.

Was French bee the most premium way to get across the Atlantic Ocean? Not by a long shot, and there is definite room for improvement. But it did manage to deliver a premium enough experience at a substantial discount to full-service airlines, even though it fell short of Norse’s product in almost every way.

Related Articles:

All images credited to the author, Jason Rabinowitz