Originally Posted by ajamieson
Sjoerd I disagree with every aspect of your analysis. The decision of KLM to pull out of the UK domestic market in 2000 was one of the key reasons a lot of UK customers left FD a few years' back; KLM foolishly assumed UK flyers simply wanted to reach far-flung destinations via AMS, ignoring the lucrative domestic market and the existance of competition. If anyone in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Leeds Bradford, Birmingham or Manchester wishes to fly to Kuala Lumpur or Addis Abbaba they have the option of more frequent connections and classier service with two other major alliances through LHR. In the case of Manchester they are quite likely to have a direct flight too. In the case of Belfast they no longer have a choice at all. Why should anyone want to put up with atrocious outsourced ground handling used by KLM in the UK and a crap frequent flyer program when they can get top level service with OneWorld or Star?
It is also untrue that the majority of airline customers do not partake in frequent flyer programs. Any basic analysis of the US market in particular will tell you otherwise.
And to claim KLM has the best frequent flyer program is simplistic in the extreme. Best for what? As demonstrated here on countless occasions, Flying Dutchman is much more appealing in theory than in practice. Personally I'd rather have a less generous program that did what it promised in an efficient manner.
It is your right to disagree with me, but in my humble opinion your analysis of the situation is solely UK-based, in other words a very limited analysis only. You probably don't even know that KLM has substantially lowered its fares from the Netherlands, so a lot more Dutch people are flying KLM these days compared to a few years ago. KLM has done the math and figured out that they don't need that many UK-based clients and that they can make more money from the Dutch market.
As for a "crap frequent flyer program", this year (2005) only, I have been able to get flights AMS - PRG - AMS for myself and my partner at exactly the dates and times that I wanted, as well as upgrades to C class both ways for myself and my partner AMS - CUR - AMS. One return trip to the Far east in C class, and I already earned some 38,000 miles. Now you try to get a flight on CX if you have many miles with them (as I do), and see how the frequent flyer programs compare.
I agree that KLM makes mistakes and they are not perfect. But I have had issues with CX, BD, LH over the last couple of years that prove that your claim of "top level service with OneWorld or Star" is simply ridiculous. (for instance, I have been fighting with the Marco Polo Club (CX) helpdesk for almost a year now to get missing miles credited, and I am still waiting for these miles to appear.)