Review of French bee flight from Miami to Paris in Economy

A catering calamity

Hello and welcome to another Flight Report!

This is the final FR from my trip to Florida and Colombia and will cover the long haul back to Europe. As I mentioned in my Edelweiss FR, Edelweiss/Swiss cancelled my return flight around a month before departure. Their 'fastest alternative' involved a 48-hour train ride to Chicago from Tampa, which was hilarious. Needless to say, I asked for a refund for the return portion and immediately started to search for another flight back to Europe. 

I booked Edelweiss/Swiss as a return between Stockholm and Tampa (which might've explained their ridiculous re-routing) however I only chose those 2 cities as they were the cheapest option to fly Edelweiss' A340. I quick search on Google Flights revealed French Bee as the cheapest (and most convenient) option to go from Florida to Europe. It does mean I'll have to get another coach to go from Orlando to Miami, but at least it saves me 2 nights (one in Tampa and one in Stockholm). For those unaware, French Bee is a low-cost long-haul airline operating out of Paris Orly with a fleet of 4 A350-900s and 2 A350-1000s.

As for price, I paid $262 one way. Like other LCCs, the base fare has nothing except a 12kg hand luggage + small personal item. I paid extra for the 'Bee Smart' fare, which includes 23kg checked luggage, a hot meal, and more flexibility. On top of all that, I also paid for seat selection (it was cheaper than the most expensive 'Bee Flex' fare, which includes it). All in all, it was a very good price considering I only booked a month in advance (full-service carriers like British Airways, Air France, KLM etc. would've cost me around $400). Is it worth all the $ saved? Let's find out! ;)

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

Miami International Airport (MIA)

You join me on the coach between Orlando and Miami. Flixbus offers frequent services between the 2 cities with a journey time of around 5 hours. This is the easiest option to travel between Orlando and Miami Airport - there is the Brightline between Orlando Airport and Downtown Miami however that requires an Uber to get to Orlando Airport first and then a 2nd one to get to Miami Airport. 

Nice view of the airport as we approach MIA. 

A Swiss A330-300 heading to Zurich (ZRH). Not too sure about the schedule, but there were 2 Swiss flights between MIA and ZRH today. Bit sad they couldn't rebook me on any of those flights (I'm still baffled by how they got a 48-hour train to ORD as the best option…) Oh well… 

Here we are at the Miami Intermodal Center. It's a bit confusing as this is the stop for Miami Airport, except it's not mentioned anywhere on the Flixbus website (unless you look on the map). It got a few people confused on the coach as well. 

You can (just about) see the train station through the mesh. This is the Tri-Rail terminus, linking MIA with Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. It's also the terminus for Metrorail, a metro system linking the airport with Downtown Miami. Public transport to the airport is really good, at least for North American standards. 

Walking to the airport…

… which requires a short trip on the MIA Mover. 

The trip takes around 2 minutes with some lovely views of the apron (shame it was too crowded for photos). 

The massive number of departures tonight. 

Like Orlando and Tampa, the terminal is divided into small sections, with each section having its own check-in desks and security. 

In line for check-in. Despite the long line, it only took around 15 minutes thanks to the agents' efficiency. They just scanned my passport, took my checked bag, and gave me my boarding pass all in under a minute, probably the fastest I've seen. 

Because the process was so quick, I was only able to get a quick scan of my tag before it was sent off. However, in that second, I noticed it had a green border, which was confirmed once I got to Paris. The green border is for bags originating in the EU, signifying that the bag isn't subject to EU customs (say for a passenger travelling solely within the union). I'm quite sure Miami isn't part of the EU (the last time I checked), so I have no idea why my tag has a green border. Either I'm misunderstanding the meaning of the green borders or something weird happened, either way, rather interesting. 

Some more photos of the check-in areas as I take a wander around the airport. A ton of Latin America influenced shops around here. 

Unlike Orlando with one massive area for security, each section here gets its own security, which makes the process so much faster. Because of that, the entire process took less than 3 minutes. That's one benefit of splitting a terminal into small sections, I guess. 

The downside? A total lack of food options airside. There are a total of 3 options here in the F gates, two of them photographed below (the 3rd is a rather crowded restaurant). 

I mean… at least one of those options sold really good pizza. However, I'd recommend getting some food in the check-in area - they've got everything there from fast food to bars. I, being from the UK, am still not used to getting food before security. 

Photo of the gates. 

There are also a small number of duty-free shops available. 

Another photo of the gates. There are 2 flights leaving from here, one being ours and the other being a Norse Atlantic flight to Berlin, which explains the large crowd. 

The Flight

Flight time to Paris Orly should be around 8 hours and here's our route: 

Why did I say should? Well, this flight was taken on the 25 January 2025, the day after a record-breaking cyclone hit the UK and Ireland, it was the most powerful storm to hit Ireland since 1961 with wind gusts up to 135mph (217kmh). This resulted in extra strong winds across the Atlantic, which drastically affected transatlantic flights, especially to Miami. 

I got bored, so I looked up the flight path of some of the (delayed) arrivals and here are some examples: 

An Iberia flight from Madrid. It flew a much, much more southerly path than usual today. 

Here's a much better example: 

This is the normal route for the ITA flight from Rome (taken from a random day):

And here's the route for the same flight today (excuse the terrible quality): 

Crazy, right? Apparently, it's faster to go allllll the way up north than to fly directly across the ocean. 

What does that mean for us? Well, because of the strong winds, our flight time got cut down to 7 hours, a full hour less than scheduled. Hooray! 

Boarding started only 20 minutes late with a comically bad system. It started with Premium Economy passengers, which is normal. They then split economy into 2 groups by row number, which is fine… except they immediately announced a huge number of rows that formed like 75% of the cabin. Like, what's even the point of this system if you just put 75% of the entire cabin in one group? It destroyed the orderly queue that formed before (everyone crowded to the gate because… it's their turn, right?) and resulted in a massive crush of people all trying to push forward. It was impressive how bad it was. 

Anyway, here's a photo of the cabin. 

The IFE (which we'll look at later) and the tray table. 

On each seat is also a blanket, no pillow unfortunately. 

Considering this is an LCC, legroom is really, really good. It's honestly some of the best I've seen (for a cabin that isn't 25 years old). However, the great legroom is countered by the 3-4-3 layout (most airlines use the more sensible 3-3-3 config). This results in the seats being much, much narrower than usual, making it really cramped. 

Photo out of the window. It's not often you sit this far forward in economy. French Bee has a very economy-heavy config on their A350s with only 35 premium eco seats and 376 economy seats on the -900. 

The jet bridge is removed to reveal a British Airways A380 heading to London (LHR). 

Pushback 20 minutes late with the Norse Atlantic 787 just arriving from Oslo (OSL). She's an hour late and will be heading to Berlin (BER) next.

View of the cargo apron and the control tower as we taxi to the runway. 

Bye bye Florida! Thanks for the amazing week. ;) 

Gorgeous view of Miami during climb. 

Downtown Miami with Biscayne Bay on the right. 

Miami's cruise terminal with 2 ships ready to go. 

One last view of the continent before we head into the dark void that is the Atlantic. 

Shortly after takeoff, the crew came around with a small bag containing a wet wipe, an eye mask, a set of earphones, and a 'food voucher'. This is because I paid extra for the 'Bee Smart' fare, which includes a hot meal for free. 

While we wait for our meal, let's have a look at the contents of the seatback pocket, which includes: a safety card and a buy-onboard/duty-free catalogue. All of this is available electronically on the IFE, which I'll demonstrate later. 

Around an hour later, the crew came around with the hot meal. 

Oh and by the way, the 'menu' is available to view on the IFE, which is a nice addition. 

It's not really a menu as there's only 1 option for economy. 

Here's the meal: I'll just copy what's written on the menu for the benefit of those on mobile (and I don't know how to describe it either).

It is: Picadillo Moros and Christiano Bananas as the main with chickpea salad, a banana cake, a chocolate bar, and a bun. 

Alright, mini-rant incoming. Does anyone actually know what the main is? I had no idea what it was during the flight, and I still have no idea what it is now, despite typing it into Google many times. All I know is that it's a Cuban dish… most likely. I don't eat beef or lamb. It's never been an issue on any flight except this one. I don't know what it is… apart from its beef (I'm incredibly sensitive to it, so I knew straight away). I still have no idea what that long thing on the left is, and Google yields no results. It tastes… salty… and weird. 

And here's my biggest complaint about this airline. Why, when people have especially paid for a hot meal, do you not give people an option? The least they could do is to ask people to select a meal during booking (like most LCCs), that way you give people an option while saving money in the process. I mean, if you're not gonna do that, why on earth would you serve something as weird as this?? Granted, I could've prevented this if I had gone out of my way to check the menu beforehand and specifically order a vegetarian meal, but I've never had to do that. It never even occurred to me to check the menu… Either way, I bet it was lovely (if you ate beef or knew what it was…). The rest of the meal was nice. At least I had the pizza in the terminal so I won't be too hungry. I'm just annoyed to have paid for this, lesson learnt, I guess. 

Anyway, after that disappointment, let's have a look at the IFE (I'm surprised they've not found a way to have people pay for the IFE… yet).

It's… alright content wise with 61 movies with a fair spread of modern and classic. A fair number of TV shows as well. All in all, a decent system but nothing special (it's rather good for LCC standards, though). 

As mentioned before, their duty-free/buy-onboard menu is available to view on the IFE as well, which is nice. Prices are reasonable. Bizarrely, none of their credit card machines were working, at least for the first half of the flight. It appeared to have been fixed a few hours in. 

Apparently, Wi-Fi should also be available…

… except it's not on this flight. 

However, a non-interactive map is available. 

After that, I slept for around 2 hours before waking up just as the sun is starting to rise. 

With some daylight, I'm finally able to show the onboard cameras. It's pretty nice for the A350 to have this. 

Around 2 hours before landing, the crew came around to sell breakfast and 30 minutes later, they announced that they have started selling duty-free. Except unlike most airlines, where the crew would come around in carts, they decided to all sit at the back of the plane and wait for people to come up to them if they're interested. I can't imagine that's an effective way to sell stuff, honestly just feels like laziness to me. 

Starting our descent into Paris.

First view of land. 

Nice views of Paris. 

On final approach.

Welcome to France! Thanks to our aforementioned tailwind, we arrived 30 minutes early (despite taking off 20 minutes late).

An Air Caraïbes A330 from Punta Cana (PUJ) as well as an Azul A330neo in the Pink Ribbon livery just arrived from Campinas (VCP).

Parked next to a Corsair A330-900 from Saint-Denis, Réunion (RUN). 

Paris Orly Airport (ORY)

The massive queue for immigration. It was full so staff had to stop people near the entrance. Morning is likely to be the busiest time with all the long-haul flights from Corsair, Air Caraïbes, and French Bee. 

Immigration took 40 minutes and here's the baggage reclaim area. 

Walking to the exit. 

And here's the arrivals area landside. 

We arrived in Terminal 4, which is in a separate building compared to Terminals 1, 2, and 3. The Orlyval connects the 2 together, which is free to passengers travelling between the terminals but not if you're heading out to Antony. (This is a French site, so most of you reading this know the airport much, much better than me haha.)

On the train. 

And here's Terminal… 1? Not too sure. 

I've got a few hours before my flight to London, which I won't be writing an FR on. Thanks for following me on this trip to Florida and Colombia. It was an interesting trip that took me ages to plan (and re-plan, after multiple cancellations). It was amazing (and confusing) to visit the US for the first time, and I can't wait to go back - in fact, I'm actually in the US when this gets published! Thanks again and see you in the next FR!