We got a very good deal on airfare through Viking but it only could be used if we went from one of their "gateway" cities, which in our case was San Francisco. We picked up a rental car the day before in Carson City. We originally had a great flight booked which was a non stop from San Francisco to Paris, leaving at 4:00PM on July 30 and getting into Paris at 11:35AM on July 31 (today). Then there was a strike of flight crew workers at Air France. Viking, fearing that our flight might be cancelled, rebooked us on a one stop on KLM thru Amsterdam, leaving about 2:00PM and arriving about 1:30PM. Not bad but not as nice as the original flights. We got up very early (3:30AM on the 30th) to be sure we got to SFO on time for the 1:30 flight. There was minimal traffic that morning and we were able to turn in the rental car about 10:00AM. Check in was to start at 10:30 so it was pretty good timing. When we checked in, the agent asked us it we wanted to take the original 4:00 non stop. We said we thought it was cancelled. He told us that it was being staffed by "senior" flight crew - I interpreted that as supervisors. We switched back to the original non stop flight and other than a loooooong wait at the airport, it was great. They fed and lubricated (wine) us well. The "senior" crew knew what they were doing. The plane was one of those huge A380's - two full decks. It was so smooth I maybe felt it move in the air once. By the way, the horror stories of waits for security seem a bit over stated. It took us all of 5 minutes to get through non TSA Pre Check security at SFO and about the same amount of time to to get through immigration and customs in Paris. Maybe it was just good timing.