Another Air France delay - though they have learnt their lesson this time

Two years on from the previous incident, I was on the exact same sequence of flights again:

AF1565 10/7/2019 19:20 BHX - CDG 21:35
AF188 10/7/2019 23:35 CDG - HKG 17:25 +1

(And if you wonder, why am I still flying with them? Well like I said, I need to use up all my mileage first, and although there is some progress, it is nowhere near completion...)

As you can see, the AF188 is scheduled at the exact times as two years ago, and AF1565 is scheduled 25 minutes earlier. The first thing I saw when I arrived at the airport was the flight is delayed... sigh. It shows a delay to 20:10. I then worked out (based on the timing last time) that there might still be a chance to catch the connecting flight. But subsequently it showed a delay to 20:45. It would need a minor miracle I thought; let's see whether they have learnt their lesson or if they want to give me another 800 euros.

The flight took off at around 21:00 - almost the same as 2 years ago despite the earlier scheduled time - and touched down 22:56 (9 minutes before the one last time, yay.) Again, there were 20+ people connecting to Hong Kong and some others to Beijing, Shanghai etc. And again they looked pretty inexperienced. I told myself, if we missed the connection again I'm going to teach them all how to claim the compensation - they didn't look like they know. That would be quite fun, wouldn't it.
One French (?) passenger commented that this flight was always late.

It turned out AF did learn their lesson. There was already someone standing at the arriving gate holding a sign of "AF188 Hong Kong" picking us up. He then led the way, and there was one lane of the security checks open. They probably were about to close - it was around 23:15, the last boarding time - and maybe AF told them to keep it open.

So, you see, with some moderate amount of planning, it can be done and you can avoid all the costs of flying a less-than-full plane, overnight accommodation, overtime for rebooking staff, and most importantly compensation for the delays of the intercontinental flights.

I was almost disappointed that they made it; I was already planning in my head what to do in Paris.

I was also upgraded to Premium Economy in AF188. They must have me on file as a troublemaker. Well sorry but I believe all I wrote were useful suggestions for you to improve your workflow (and hence profitability).

It turned out AF188's departure was also mildly delayed - by various reasons such as unable to close the cargo door - and it would be even more ridiculous if we were unable to connect to it because of something like security staff gone off work.

Unfortunately, while we the passengers got to the connecting flight, our baggage didn't and they had to take next day's flight. But at least they delivered it pretty swiftly (the plane landed at 17:35 local time the next day and the luggage was delivered to my front door shortly before midnight.)

All in all this post is to give credits to AF. Not for the delay obviously but for learning their lessons.