Qatar Airways QSuites has to be the best overall business class products, with the Japan Airlines A350 and ANA ‘The Room’ closely behind. Singapore Airlines has great service and food, in my view, but their seat lags. Etihad’s new seat is fantastic. It’s hard to beat the soft product experience of EVA Air and – from what I’ve seen, but not yet experienced – Starlux. Cathay Pacific’s brand new Aria Suite looks fantastic. These are Asian and Middle Eastern airlines.

There’s not a single American or European carrier amongst the world’s top business class offerings. However if we were to pick one to include it would have to be Air France? And their best business class is onboard Airbus A350s with their newest seat.

Of course, if you’re flying out of Paris Charles de Gaulle in anything other than Air France’s La Premiere, the ground experience is a mess. If it’s at all practical, use their check-in kiosks because the line for priority check-in (currently moved to row 4 due to construction) can be quite long. Priority departing immigration for non-E.U. passports can be interminable. And then of course you’ve got to make it out to your flight’s concourse and proceed through security.

Arriving at the airport 2 hours and 20 minutes prior to departure, we cruised up to the gate 5 minutes prior to the start of boarding (though of course there was no need to board at the start of boarding). I felt like that was timed perfectly as you’re really not missing much – other than better wines than you’ll find on the ground with most airlines – by skipping the lounge.

The cabin and the STELIA OPERA seat are just lovely.

At the seat prior to boarding was a pillow, blanket, coat hanger and slippers. This was a day flight but also over 10 hours. The lack of mattress pad has been a meaningful gap in their soft product. There was also a bottle of water in the seat’s cabin with headphones, a menu and an amenity kit.

One seemingly small item I liked about the seat was the extra storage compared to most business class seats. There was a compartment that fit my laptop easily. Also, crew permitted storing my laptop bag in the footwell for takeoff and landing so it remained accessible rather than in an overhead bin.

While passengers were boarding, and after checking out the seat, I proceeded to the lavatory with my coat hanger to change into pajamas. Air France doesn’t provide them on this flight, but on all flights over 7 hours I’ll bring a pair with me. I have enough airline pajamas that I’ll usually bring that airline’s from another flight, though I’ll sometimes choose from within a joint venture partnership or at least alliance.

Here for simplicity, since I was flying different alliances on both the outbound and return, I just brought two pair of 2012-era American Airlines first class pajamas on this trip – they remain among my favorites – and took out my second pair for this flight home.

A bathroom feature on the aircraft is that the trash opens when you wave your hand over it, which is nice because you’re usually depositing paper towels there after you’ve washed your hands. Now do opening the door…

One small item I really appreciate about Air France is that they offer children’s meals for pre-order (though my daughter has always been happy with whatever the adults were eating) and they also have baby amenity kits. Here’s the one that they provided for my son:

And here’s the grownup amenity kit. Very odd – surprisingly weak (though consistent with not providing a mattress pad). It contained socks, ear plugs, eye mask and some beauty items.

I appreciate airlines where cameras on the aircraft are viewable as part of the inflight entertainment system.

We were delayed slightly but in the air quickly once we taxied out. Service began shortly thereafter. Air France does a nice meal service in business class, and as I noted recently, the crepes fourrees are that Air France serves are probably the best pre-meal drink accompaniment offered on any airline. That was followed by an amuse bouche.

The trout starter was excellent, while the shrimp was… better than average for a transatlantic business class meal – Air France isn’t copying BA trying to get away with serving breakfast on a 10:30 a.m. departure where you’re not eating until almost noon – but the butternut squash sauce that accompanied it and the risotto fell a bit flat.

I followed the main with their cheeses and two of their dessert minis that a flight attendant came around with on a cart. I thought about but opted against having these with a drink.

I might call the midflight offerings weak, since I think that anything over 10 hours ought to have a hot option, and there should certainly be some fresh items besides just fruit, but their packaged snack game is so strong that I give them a pass on this. More of those crepes that were offered at the start of the flight. Yes, please!

Second meal service was good, and I enjoyed a double espresso prior to landing. The flight passed nicely. My daughter was happy because long haul flights mean unlimited tablet time, and my son was happy with all of the toys packed for him.

A few other notes on the flight. Wifi has both a ‘surfing’ and ‘streaming’ option. The streaming option was around $41 for the flight, which is quite expensive, and it was frustratingly bad. I’ve read that there’s not really a noticeable difference between the two options, but I still got suckered into the premium one ‘just in case’.

There was one great flight attendant in the cabin – he was happy, friendly, and eager throughout. There was one crewmember who was quite surly. They sort of balanced each other out.

The seat itself is good but not that much better than BA’s, outside of the extra storage compartment. I will say that row 1 – and it wasn’t available to us – has incredible space and I’d probably say that Air France A350 business class row 1 is the best business seat of any U.S. or European carrier over the Pond.

Where the business class product has lagged most is lack of a mattress pad but just after my flight they announced a collaboration with Accor Hotels for a mattress pad. I suppose they’d make the experience even more memorable if they adopted something along the lines of sister carrier KLM which provides business customers with a deplaning gift of Delft houses or invested a couple million dollars in caviar like Qatar.

I was very happy with the flight overall, and find that Air France is remarkably consistent within a pretty narrow range. Adding mattress pads will go a long way towards addressing one of the few deficiencies with the product, though I’d like to see much better wifi.