Air France announced a new route this week that will connect the French capital to the theme park capital of the world. The carrier will launch 4x weekly service between Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) and Orlando International Airport (MCO) beginning in May 2025. The flight is expected to operate year round.
The flight will operate using Airbus A350-900 aircraft featuring 34 Business Class seats, 24 Premium Economy seats, and 266 Economy seats. Flights are blocked at 9h 40m westbound and 8h 30m eastbound, operating on the following schedule on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays:
CDG-MCO AF 96 Departs: 5:05p Arrives: 8:45p
MCO-CDG AF 97 Departs: 11:00p Arrives: 1:30p (+1)
I’m somewhat surprised at how late the departures are in each direction. Typically we see flights from Europe to the United States departing in the morning or early afternoon with an afternoon or evening return. This allows for feed of both sides when connecting to other destinations. I would assume that the timing of these flights is related to aircraft utilization more than anything else.
With the new flight, Orlando becomes the carrier’s 25th destination in North America, and 18th in the United States, joining Atlanta, Boston, Cancun, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Miami, Montreal, Minneapolis, New York JFK, New York Newark, Ottawa, Phoenix, Quebec City, Raleigh Durham, San Francisco, Toronto, Seattle, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C.
The most surprising thing to me about this route is the fact that it didn’t already exist. Air France’s transatlantic joint venture partner Delta has a massive operation in Orlando, though it’s not quite a hub. Delta operates seasonal service between Orlando and London which is also served by JV partner Virgin Atlantic and British Airways but hasn’t connected Orlando to Paris.
Admittedly, when I first saw the news, I assumed Air France was taking over the route from Delta, as I assumed it already existed. Delta does fly between Orlando and Amsterdam seasonally, connecting passengers via JV partner KLM’s large hub there.
This news is great for Delta frequent flyers living in Orlando as they will finally have year-round connectivity to Paris and beyond thanks to the joint venture with Air France. This seems like a logical add for the airline and I’m optimistic that this flight will do quite well.
The flights are currently available for booking via the Air France website.
Summary
Air France is launching 4x weekly flights between Paris and Orlando starting in May 2025. The flights will be operated using Airbus A350-900 aircraft and provide SkyTeam frequent flyers a year-round connection between Central Florida and Europe (Virgin Atlantic is also a SkyTeam member but doesn’t have short haul connectivity throughout Europe). I’m optimistic that this flight will do quite well given the demand on both ends.
I see AUS in their future!
We can hope! Would love to see a combo of Air France and KLM running daily service to Europe.
They have everything already set-up at AUS. Now all they need is the flight. I could see AF 3x and KL 4x weekly with all days of the week covered. That would give you daily SkyTeam service to Europe.
That is exactly my thought. As Delta continues to build up in AUS I can see it happening. British Airways is going to double daily even though American is pulling back in Austin. The issue is going to become gate space since I believe we only have 3 widebody gates.