I flew home unexpectedly on March 15. It was at the point where the Coronavirus had gotten to a critical stage of development in France. The morning of my flight every non essential service or store in France was closed indefinitely. So, all of the shops -except a snack shop and a newsstand were closed. The terminal, 2E was remarkably quiet. I checked in on line but without a printer, I had to go through luggage tag printing and luggage drop off. AF has gone to a drop your luggage yourself system which, at least for the first time, was a bit challenging.
On board, our flight had down sized the equipment from a Airbus 380 to a Boing 777. The flight was only half full. With that, service on the aircraft was excellent. The food was adequate and drinks were generous. WE has good onboard entertainment including wifi (free if you just want to check and send e-mail).
Arriving at JFK we were instructed to remain in our seats - even when the familiar ding comes from the flight deck. We sat for about 10 minutes when we heard a voice on the PA identifying himself as a CDC employee telling us that we would receive a health questionnaire that we must fill out before deplaning. We did and upon deplaning we had our questionnaire read and our temperature taken. From there it was on to immigration, then baggage inspection. Immigration was empty, and with the 20 minute delay in deplaning, our luggage was waiting for us and we just walked through customs rolling our bags. From the door of the aircraft to the exit door of the terminal, it took no more than 10 minutes. It was really an amazing and good experience - considering this was only day 2 of health checks for people coming in from overseas. On the down side, of course this was evidence that the US travel market was shutting down, and that was sad though I knew was needed.