KLM Flying Dutchman - KLM to Middle East

At the end of November I will be participating in a KLM study trip to Muscat Oman. If you have flown KLM to MCT (or other cities in the region) and have positive or negative comments on their service, I would be grateful to hear them. I am keeping an open mind, but find it helpful to hear other travellers' experiences - people focus on different things when they travel.

I've taken KLM from AMS-BAH several times in economy and never had a problem. I've also taken BA, LH, QR, EK, and GF to the Middle East and interestingly enough all seem to offer decent service to the region. I would have no hesitation in taking KLM again.

Welcome to Flyertalk, tbs2810
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Obscure2k
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At the end of November I will be participating in a KLM study trip to Muscat Oman. If you have flown KLM to MCT (or other cities in the region) and have positive or negative comments on their service, I would be grateful to hear them. I am keeping an open mind, but find it helpful to hear other travellers' experiences - people focus on different things when they travel.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, tbs2810.

My wife has just returned from AMS-MCT-AMS in C (World Business Class). Her experience was typical KL: slippery seats, ok food, friendly crew but nothing exceptional.

Both AMS-MCT and MCT-AMS have a stop in AUH, making the AMS-AUH 6 hours and the AUH-AMS segment just about 7 hours, leaving little time to sleep on the night flight AUH-AMS. Meal service commences shortly after take off from AUH. In her case, they held the flight in AUH for an extra half hour in order not to arrive too early in AMS. That meant departure from AUH was 1:30 am only by which time most pax would like to sleep a bit.

By the way, she heard rumours that KLM will discontinue MCT next year.

I've done KLM AMS-IST several times and have been very frustrated. The KL flights don't connect well with internal flights to destinations elsewhere in Turkey. I've always been in business class, so the outbound isn't too bad--you just have a long wait in the lounge, although finding the right Turkish Air lounge at IST is nontrivial and I never did discover how a transit passenger can access it and then check in (get boarding pass--luggage already checked through) in the lounge. The return is a nightmare if one does KLM rather than Turkish Air from IST to AMS because you are forced to sit for many hours on horrible plastic crowded seats in a hot noisy smokey area while waiting many hours for the KLM check in counter to open (in my experience, late). There are some nice lounges, including priority pass, at IST, after you have checked in. Once I was convinced that KLM had terminated service or even gone out of business because there was no sign of any activity at the counter and no one answered their phone. Another time, starting from Istanbul, I was told that I needed to be at the airport long before the counter opened. On board, it's a long flight which isn't helped by KLM's refusal to block middle seats in business class, let alone use aircraft with real business class seats (2-2 on narrow body) and more space between the rows in front. Overall, my experiences on Turkish Air AMS-IST-AMS have been much better, even though I think I'd rather be on KLM for the FF miles and professionalism, including security and ease of getting my AMS-IST boarding pass before leaving MSP.

I flew AMS-DOH and back a few months ago and it was pleasant. This was in Y, btw. While the stop in DMM can be a somewhat annoying, the crew was professional and overall I'd say KL did a good job. While I can not compare them to Middle Eastern carriers, I would not hesitate to fly KL to the Middle East again.

(I would not count IST as a Middle Eastern destination. The flight is shorter and it is operated with a 737 as opposed to a widebody; from this perspective it's treated more as a European destination.)

I have flown to DXB, AUH, BAH, DOH and KWI on KLM maybe 50 or 60 times in the last 15 years and they have almost always been fine. i rarely choose anyone else to be honest to this region as the schedule is very convenient from ABZ. MCT i have not done with them but can;t see why it woul dbe any different - other than the stop in AUH of course.

I have flown KLM many times, and in my opinion the service is just fine, but not the best. I must say, that when flying to the middle east I would prefer Emirates. On the other side KLM offers a great service for not much money and the Schiphol airport is simply amazing.

Hi everybody,

Thanks for all the replies! This was a great help :-)

Welcome to FlyerTalk tbs2810!

I've done KLM AMS-IST several times and have been very frustrated. The KL flights don't connect well with internal flights to destinations elsewhere in Turkey. I've always been in business class, so the outbound isn't too bad--you just have a long wait in the lounge, although finding the right Turkish Air lounge at IST is nontrivial and I never did discover how a transit passenger can access it and then check in (get boarding pass--luggage already checked through) in the lounge. The return is a nightmare if one does KLM rather than Turkish Air from IST to AMS because you are forced to sit for many hours on horrible plastic crowded seats in a hot noisy smokey area while waiting many hours for the KLM check in counter to open (in my experience, late). There are some nice lounges, including priority pass, at IST, after you have checked in. Once I was convinced that KLM had terminated service or even gone out of business because there was no sign of any activity at the counter and no one answered their phone. Another time, starting from Istanbul, I was told that I needed to be at the airport long before the counter opened. On board, it's a long flight which isn't helped by KLM's refusal to block middle seats in business class, let alone use aircraft with real business class seats (2-2 on narrow body) and more space between the rows in front. Overall, my experiences on Turkish Air AMS-IST-AMS have been much better, even though I think I'd rather be on KLM for the FF miles and professionalism, including security and ease of getting my AMS-IST boarding pass before leaving MSP.

It's Turkish Airlines and not Turkish Air and IST has been fully non-smoking for the past 2 years almost. Even before then, you could only smoke in smoking lounges and not everywhere...