Thanks for the interesting link, Johan.A seldomly read source, but nevertheless full of good points worth a discussion, imo !
Sadfully I have to understand that even in this day and age racism is still a factor in many societies around the globe and it is still shocking to read such a column.On the other hand the frequent ( KLM ) traveller knows how disrespectful many KLM agents are at Schiphol, but unfortunately to any pax, not only to certain ethnical groups.
Beside that I am pretty sure that the Netherlands have far less problems with racism than Germany for example, but I still fear that the author is right with some remarks that a black person has to deal with such comments more often than a white person.
Unfortunately a certain percentage of society is still in favour of extreme right wing political opinions and those people are certainly represented in the airline business as well.It is sad enough, but I would hesitate to generally blame KLM staff of racism.
Beside that let me add some more general comments about KLM and the competition the author mentioned.As pointed out a couple of times, I actually only fly KL/NW and LH/UA regularly with the odd feeder flight on Mesaba or Eurowings rounding up my flight pattern, so I am able to comment on the service levels of those airlines only.Based on my experience the differences are more or less non existent anymore, all airlines have cut back everything they could and while I tend to critisize KLM meals in WBC from time to time, I have to say that the new lunch/breakfast box concept is superior to the competition in international Y to mention one point.On the other hand many other aspects are inferior, especially the boarding process for many ( full ) flights ex Schiphol.
As many posters here pointed out multiple times, KLM service has been inconsistent over the last years and many, especially asian airlines, have closed the ( service ) gap pretty fast, certainly some airlines surpassed KLM easily with their service standards.I agree with the author here, however one cannot blame KLM for getting the most out of a certain market, let it be Ghana or DTW or maybe even DUS, all airlines are doing the same and are happy to do so....