Maybe It's Not So Easy to Book a Bargain Flight to Paris with XL Airways

Two weeks ago, I learned of the plans of XL Airways to begin offering cut-rate fares across the Atlantic between New York or Las Vegas and Paris, and I immediately placed a call to representatives of that carrier in New York. They provided me with a telephone number (tel. 877/496-9889) where bookings could be made, and also read off the name of an English-language website ( www.xlfrance.com ) where bookings could be made on an imminent basis; it was apparently in the process of going live. All of which I then incorporated into a blog post.

Very quickly I began receiving comments from readers that the website didn't work. When I placed another call yesterday to the same representatives, I was told they had made a mistake, that the correct website for XL Airways was www.xlsirways.fr . When I later pointed out that was a French-language site for flights originating in Paris, they apologized for their mistake, and said that an English-language site would go up "in about a month." They also hesitantly mentioned that persons attempting to use the French-language site might encounter difficulties in using their U.S.-issued credit cards to make bookings on that site.

Imagine! A French airline has announced it will begin flying the Atlantic on May 22, but the website for that line will not go up for a month!

Now it is true that XL Airways has apparently made arrangements to honor bookings made by consolidators and others; a friend of mine was recently able to reserve a New York-to-Paris XL flight for her family of four on Vayama ( www.vayama.com ). The XL Airways representatives in New York almost breathlessly recited to me that they were soon going up on all the online travel agencies (like Travelocity) and that travel agents would soon be able to make bookings for XL Airways' trans-Atlantic flights.

But as for direct bookings made by the public -- bookings that would not carry a booking fee -- those will have to be done, apparently, by phone calls to an office number serviced, it seemed to me, by a very small number of persons.

These events have shaken my attitude towards XL Airways. An airline so badly mishandling their introduction into the U.S. market is not one to inspire confidence. One wonders whether, in actuality, they will really be offering such great price advantages over the Atlantic. One also wonders whether its executives are almost wholly focused on French-originating bookings made by French citizens, and have not given too much thought to the effective marketing of their seats in the United States.