Concerto

Absurd. I nearly always play around with those machines if I have a bit of time, just to see if they might offer a last minute upgrade at a reasonable price, as reported in the other thread, or to change my seat often to a quieter nod towards the back of the plane (on European flights).

Monkeying around with the machines that Lufthansa provide at Munich airport got me kicked off the flight once (surprisingly easy to do on those machines), although it was easy enough to reinstate my seat at the gate (I was in C).

florin

I do that too. Often times I can find a row of 3 empty seats way in the back of the plane (the last 3-4 rows) and I get to travel in style. (Hint: you can hang a sheet and imagine you're flying in an SQ suite. )

Concerto

Yeah, I've always said that the best 1st class is an empty economy class! Seriously, though, I've gone off OLCI big time for the moment.

Fly Baby

Agreed. I'm using KLM quite a lot now and I'm really starting to see how they work at Schiphol but I think that would have made me RUN to the gate at speeds Usain Bolt would have admired.

The one down side** of the whole KLM experience is their IT. Their website and their online check in service is truly horrible. I've already experienced most of the above - the failure of online check in to work smoothly every time is incredibly inconvenient when you're on the move. I love flying KLM (still in the honeymoon phase I suppose) but doing anything online with them only makes me appreciate BA more.

Does anyone know if they ever do any UX testing with real passengers? For me its not just the fact that the services they offer do not work well, the layout of their website is ancient - it urgently needs updating. And I'm sure they would benefit from the collective experience posted here!

** I just thought of another one - the Delta Lounge at JFK. I have not the words....

Fly Baby

Outstanding!!

irishguy28

I'm no longer flying KLM very often at all, but I used to always look at the seatmap using the "blue robots" in the lounge, or on the stroll to the gate, to see if the flight was full, or a better seat available, or if I had been moved in front of the curtain.

However, some time ago they machines started giving some kind of a message along the lines of the seatmap no longer being available due to the proximity of departure - it seems it no longer does this, and allows you to view the seats right up until the message "your flight has departed. Go to the transfer desk"?

Henry III

I agree 100%! My last three KLM trips (all GLA-AMS-EUR, all booked on KLM website and KL stock, and all on purely KL metal) have resulted in complete OLCI failure! Each time, I receive the email at ~T-30h inviting me to OLCI; each time, I end up with "online check in is unavailable" (no reason given) and each time, I have gone immediately to the AF website and successfully checked in.

It's truly bizarre. Depending on my mood, I find this either extremely irritating or totally risible. As a regular KLM traveller, I have no problem trying the AF website, but the occasional or first-time traveller would not be aware of this option, so the whole concept of OLCI to avoid check-in queues at the airport is utterly wiped out. For a modern airline and company the size of KLM, this unacceptable IT quality must surely be losing them money.

-- Henry

-Kris-

The online check in is indeed a joke. On the AF site I always can check in (or the mobile app) but KLM often tells you it's not open yet for OLCI ...

florin

I checked in earlier today for GVA-AMS-OTP. Some notes:

• I got the OLCI email AFTER I had checked in. No biggy.
• I checked in while logged out and I got the old, crappy electronic BP.
• Later in the day, I went to KLM.com and logged in. When I clicked on the itin, it said that check-in is not yet available (although I had already checked in).
• I clicked on Check-In, but not the option in the itinerary; rather the general check-in. I entered the PNR and flight# and I was able to check-in. The electroninc BP that was emailed to me was in the new format.

@:-)Conclusions:

1. Just because the web site says you can't OLCI, doesn't mean you can't OLCI.
2. If you want the BP in the new format, you have to be logged in when you OLCI.

Internaut

With both AF and KLM, I'm struggling to remember an OLCI experience that wasn't a bloody nightmare. From my present situation (simply can't, and the data they have for me looks dodgy), to my return from HRE (could do OLCI, *but* had to experiment with different routes through the websdite), to my flight to Kinshasa (*no*, I want nothing whatsoever to do with FlyBe OLCI - the flight has an AF code!!!!!), it's never simply worked perfectly for me.

NB00

I have been a bit frustrated but in an other way. I used to be able to get the blocked seats in the 1st row of EC upon OLCI when doing it at 30/24 hr before departure (intercontinental). Like them as it allows me to work freely on my portable. More and more of those seats have been blocked. But on recent flights, they are already occupied, even when I am one of the first to check in (last flight I was #1 but 6 out of 7 were occupied already; previous flight I was # 7 but all 8 seats were gone at OLCI). When I got on the flight, there were no infants, invalid people to sit on those seats or Elite+ holders (or "friends of KLM"). I found it strange.

I probably should ask this question to KLM instead.

mfkne

I must be doing something wrong (or quite right actually), because I don't remember when I last faced a problem with OLCI.

jshastri

I haven't flown KLM in the last few months, as I have been taking advantage of some Delta buddy passes that I received from my brother-in-law. I can definitely say there is always something wrong in the OLCI. If it doesn't work on KLM's website, go to AF's and vice versa. Best offer I received was for my dad on an AF flight to Delhi, managed to get him a J class upgrade for around 500 euros. Yet, the AF website kept bugging up and had to use KLM's site to pick seats and check in online. As for the blue machines at Schiphol, I always check them to see if I get an upgrade offer or to mess around with my seats. As most of my flights are to and from Manchester, there is always a 50 pound upgrade offer for EBC.

Brendan88

I usually book my flights within a week of departure, most of the EC seats are booked at that time. Once, when booking over the phone the klm sales desk mentioned that there were no more EC isle seat (my preference) available after which she mentioned she will try to put me on one of the blocked EC bulkhead seats (not the center ones) that worked. From now on I always give them a ring and it works most of the the.

San Gottardo

Sure. What one can always do at least with AF is to simply accept and print out the boarding pass they send you. And just accept that people travelling together are spread all over the plane, that you cannot get the seat that you want (window or aisle) but some middle seat somewhere in the back and any elite privileges not being honoured. You also may not want to do things like change your seat, check-in over the website for connecting flights, and be perfectly fine with the system telling you that it cannot issue the boarding pass, that this time it works on the mobile app not on the website but next time it's the other way around, to only get a check in confirmation but not the actual boarding pass, to have to go to another airline's website to actually check in, and if you don't want fancy things like mobile boarding passes in Passbook or transparency of which seats are really available and not just pretend to be occupied, then indeed you will never have a problem. And don't make things too complicated, like for instance trying to fly from such exotic places like the United States, expecting the airline that you fly with to give you a boarding pass from their website for the seat that you have booked in advance. Or imagine that the airline will have a simple one click solution for you when you just enter your frequent-flier number.

And I am certain that for the bulk of passengers that have no expectations, no status, and do not fly often enough to actually care this is all just perfectly fine. Obviously, on this forum you have people with routings that are more complex than a return trip over a weekend to one destination and back, frequent flyers to whom having the seat that they want on the several flights per week that they make actually does make a difference, that have a status with the airline and promises that come with it. It is everything beyond the most primitive no status, no expectations, shut up and take what we give you passengers on simple routings without transfers that the system often has problems dealing with.

The actual design of their website and especially of their iPhone app has improved dramatically over the past years. The problem is that functionality and reliability are complete rubbish.

And that is the thing that at least in my case goes on my nerves: I just never know how much time and hassle I have to invest to get the boarding pass before heading to the airport. And sometimes I have to budget for some time to do chicken at the airport. Sometimes not. Which takes away all the potential for efficiency and timesaving that online check-in is supposed to provide.