Air Caraibes

Air Caraibes is a French carrier built around one job: linking Paris with the French Caribbean. Most of the network fans out from Paris Orly to Fort-de-France in Martinique and Pointe-a-Pitre in Guadeloupe, with a widebody fleet sized for those long transatlantic legs and a turboprop that stitches the islands together once you arrive.

Because the core routes are seven-hour-plus Atlantic crossings, the cabin choices matter more here than on a short hop. The widebodies carry three cabins, so the trade between paying up and staying in the back is a real decision rather than a formality.

The long-haul fleet leans on the Airbus A350, in both the -900 and the larger -1000, alongside older A330-300s. All three are laid out with a forward Business cabin, a mid-cabin Premium Economy and a long economy section behind. The A350s are the quieter, more modern ride; the A330-300 covers the same routes with an earlier-generation cabin. Inter-island flying is handled by the ATR 72-600 turboprop, a single-class aircraft sized for short island-to-island runs.

On the widebodies the experience splits three ways. Business sits up front with lie-flat comfort for overnight crossings, Premium Economy gives you a wider seat and more pitch in a small dedicated zone, and economy fills the rest of the aircraft. The ATR is a different world entirely: a compact 2-2 turboprop cabin where flights are short and the seat you pick matters less than on the Atlantic legs.

On the A350s and the A330-300, the seats worth chasing in economy are the ones with a clear aisle and no lavatory or galley immediately behind, since the back of a widebody economy cabin gets both foot traffic and noise. Premium Economy is a small cabin, so its seats book out early on popular Caribbean dates. If you are only flying the ATR between islands, treat it as a short hop and prioritise an aisle or window over any legroom calculation.