johan rebel

Indeed, and without having asked for anything whatsoever.

Johan

lpx99nl

I will be at the PTFL event tonight
will be nice to meet other from the group.
I will wear a red linen jacket. and I'm bold ;-)

COFF-Platinum

I will be there as well: Blue sports-jacket, khaki slacks. I'm timid, most of the time..

irishguy28

I think Flyertalk will be responsible for keeping the number low - as it highlights to anyone just how bad a programme FB is!!!

irishguy28

Either you meant you have no hair - or are you really a naughty boy?

stimpy

Well it was a great party and I met lpx99nl and maybe some other Flyertalkers. The KLM CEO gave a great speech, although I think he made a couple errors on how to qualify for Plat and LTP.

However there were some numbers given. If I heard correctly, there were 177 new Dutch-based LTP's invited and 90 showed up! As was mentioned, that's a pretty good turnout given that we all travel a lot. We were also told that there are 4700 total LTP's.

There was an A330 in the hanger getting some toilet repairs, a 777 getting an engine overhaul, and a 777 Cargo jet getting some engine maintenance and we got to walk up into the main deck. We also got a close up view of the engine overhaul which was neat. And a close view of the empty 777 wing which was missing the engine.

There was an inspiring presentation of the space program too.

I met the executives in charge of sales and marketing and had some pointed questions about merging the two reservation systems and why the web sites give different results. They seemed surprised!

We were told that there is a new Crowne Club coming to Schiphol next year!

We were given a gift of Delft cufflinks for men and a necklace for ladies. Also a toy space shuttle and marketing materials from www.spacexc.com

COFF-Platinum

It was a very well organized and highly entertaining event.

I had a different tour (white group) and got to visit the 777-300 crewrests both fore and aft. KLM certainly treats their staff well. I'll have to figure out how to post pictures to the forum..

In addition to the 4700 ( I heard 5000, so seems consistent), there are apparently approx 7000 plats in NL, on a total of 1 million FB members.

brunos

Sorry to get a bit confused about the various appellations LTPE, PFL, LTP, etc... Could we all agree on a short appellation like PFL; LTPE is not intuitive?
More importantly, could someone reconcile the numbers of current PFL? are there 5,000 PFL and 7,000 other Plats in the Netherland?

orbitmic

Indeed, great info but would be nice to get confirmation once and for all of whether those numbers are Netherlands only, worldwide, or some Netherlands and some worldwide! I'll admit it sounds counter-intuitive to me that there would be as many PfL as normal Plats.

And agree with brunos on sticking to PfL. LTPE is the old label inherited from FD ("lifetime platinum elite") but next year, FD and FP will have been dead for a decade! High time to give things their actual name I guess

lpx99nl

Yes yesterday was a really nice event.
as "red" group we visited inside the 747 cargo. I never been so close to the outside of an airplane. I shake hand of the KLM CEO and I mentioned to him that my Platinum for life has double value because I managed to remain PT 11 years without any Business class ticket only with the mileage! he was quite surprised.

strikerbird

Now I am interested... What is this? Where in Schiphol? And who is it for?

SB

stimpy

They said roughly in the same space, but also said it would be multi-level. So I guess we have to prepare for a year of disruption in the club. I assume they meant the non-Schengen lounge, but we'll see. And who is it for? For us of course. No changes in that respect.

stimpy

I just remembered some other things. Too much Champagne last night I guess.

Long Haul eco is getting all new seats. But no new changes to the EC product. I asked if they would increase the differentiation like BA does, but was told no.

And although I think it has been mentioned here, it was confirmed that the 747's will go away as soon as they get jumbo replacements. They seem to want that to happen ASAP. Which is sad to me as I love the 747. The first 787 is still scheduled for next year. It's also weird that they would install the new flat biz seats on the 747 and then get rid of them as quick as they can. They said that the 787 would get a newer generation of biz seats than what is being installed now. But it would be by the same Dutch designer.

And about the CEO's speech, the thing that stood out to me was that KLM will become more KLM and less generic. Ditto for AF. That is their competitive angle against the wealthy Gulf airlines. You can't copy Dutch and French culture so they will go strong with that and stay away from low cost and bling.

Of course this afternoon I flew on a F70 and would like to tell the CEO just how much I hate the "low cost" approach to their short haul fleet.

orbitmic

Interestingly, I would have expected the contrary (the Schengen area) as the non-Schengen were merged and tend to have enough space while the Schengen lounge is sometimes overcrowded and will be more so as new countries join the Schengen area.

The question about "who" was a good one, with extra lounge space, KL could have decided to differentiate the Platinum experience a la BA or LH/LX for instance, but I guess this is not their priority.

strikerbird

Yeah, but wait did h say Crowne club. Because now its called Crowne lounge. Is this a translate error or is the marketing people coming up with a new service

Hope for the latter only for the top-tiers

SB