Düsseldorf to Amsterdam in KLM Economy

Check-in for KL flights opens 30 hours before departure, which, in my case, meant that it would start in the middle of the night. And though I usually try to be one of the first people to check in for a flight for which I don’t have a seat reservation, in this instance I couldn’t really do that without setting an alarm clock for half past twelve in the morning. So I thought it should still be early enough to do the check-in after waking up, particularly as I didn’t expect the plane to be too full on an early Sunday morning.

When logging into the web check-in a few hours after check-in had already started, I was surprised to see that the seat map showed most seats already taken, with only two or three rows (in 2-2 configuration) near the back of the plane still vacant. However, I also noticed that the rows in the „preferred zone“ (or whatever KLM calls that) were still completely empty, and that they wanted a fee of 10 EUR in order to get a seat there. As I know how tight the seating on a „Jungle Jet“ (as someone on the internet has once called the Embraer series) can be - I’ve flown them a couple of times on Helvetic and was barely able to fit my legs under the seat in front of me - I thought that it might well be worth the fee, as (a) they were promising „up to“ (whatever that means) 10 cm more legroom in those seats and (b) I guessed that most people on this flight would probably be day-trip tourists who wouldn’t want to spend the additional money for such a seat, which means there was a high chance of also getting an empty seat next to me. Hence, I selected 4A and proceeded with the payment. The payment process itself (as well as the entire check-in process) proved to be quite circumstantial (particularly on a mobile phone which also caused me to mis-type the credit card number in the first try, having to enter all the payment details again), and I really think that the check-in process of LH group airlines is much easier and more straightforward. But then, it could very well be that I’m just more used to checking in with them.

What really annoyed me a bit was the fact that the boarding pass e-mail didn’t contain any boarding information (for example, seat number or boarding time) - this was only present in the barcode attachment to use for the boarding machine, which I only found out by chance when opening the file accidentally. Unlike most other airlines I’ve flown with so far, they are also not providing Passbook boarding passes which I find to be quite handy, particularly in offline conditions.

The Flight

Flight: KL1852
From: DUS/EDDL
To: AMS/EHAM
Aircraft Type: Embraer ERJ170-200 (E175)
Registration: PH-EXG
STD: 06:10
STA: 07:10

After getting up really early (particularly for a Sunday) and ordering a taxi to take me to the airport from home, I arrived at a surprisingly busy departure terminal around 10 past 5 in the morning.





The first flights are allowed to take off from DUS at 6am, and there is quite a list of flights that is blocked to depart at exactly 6, so it’s no wonder that the airport is already quite busy so early in the morning. I noticed that most passengers seemed to be senior citizens, although there were als a few younger people around. All in all I thought that the airport was much busier than I had expected for a Sunday morning. The line at the security check at concourse B seemed to be quite long and it took about 15 minutes to get through (which has, unfortunately, not been uncommon in the last few months). The gate was located right behind security, and I only had to wait a few minutes before boarding started.



Our plane was parked relatively close to the gate, although we still had to take a bus to drive those 200m.







I was among the first people on board. In the next picture, you can see where the „preferred“ zone ends. The seats with more legroom have a dark blue headrest, while the „normal“ seats have a light blue headrest. This is probably also the maximum number of rows that should be declared as business class.

The legroom was actually much better than the legroom in Helvetics E-Jets, and I guess paying those 10 EUR definitely paid off. Unfortunately, I was the only passenger sitting in the preferred zone who didn’t have a vacant seat next to him (even though there were still two or three rows that were completely empty). Hence, my strategy seemed to have been right, but then it didn’t work out in the end (and the guy next to me obviously also didn’t think of moving one row back in oder to get both of us an entire row to ourselves).



The plane got quite full right on schedule, and we pushed back a few minutes late, with the FO announcing a flight time of approximately 30 minutes, predicting an on-time arrival. We pushed back about 10 minutes late, and made our way to RWY 23L for takeoff. While we were taxiing, I thought I should take a picture of the first plane landing at DUS on that day, as this Singapore A350 could very well be the plane to pick me up at Kuala Lumpur on the next day.



Upon takeoff, I noticed how quiet the Embraer jets actually are, and how big the windows are, compared to older planes, including the A320 series. The CS on the next flight to Zurich will definitely have to compete against that.

Shortly after takeoff, the service began. The 8 people seated in rows 1 and 2 (Business Class) received a paper bag with all kinds of snacks each, while those of us sitting in economy received a very small cup of mineral water, together with „minibite“ cookies - I really don’t know why anyone would call those cookies „minibite“, as this already sounds like it is, well, just „mini“. Still, I think it is quite impressive that they actually serve something to their economy passengers, as the flight time is about the same as Lufthansas Stuttgart to Munich vv. flights, where economy passengers don’t get anything.



A few minutes later, the First Officer came onto the PA again and announced our landing for 6:50 on RWY 18R - of course, I always get that runway when flying to AMS, and the announced 10 minutes taxi time from the runway to the gate turned out to be 13 in the end.

We arrived at our „walk gate“ (which is basically a bus gate that is close enough to the terminal that you can walk) slightly ahead of schedule, and after taking a final picture of the plane at the gate, I started the long trek to the Aspire Lounge.



Verdict

There’s not much I can say about such a short flight. It is exactly what you can expect from a short intra-european hop, but I really like the plane itself for being quiet and the option of getting an „extra legroom“ seat, even if you have to pay for it.