johan rebel

Cabin crew union VNC has announced that they are working with KLM to crew as many delayed flights as possible, magnanimously adding that they will only demand compensation later.

Johan

Full of hot air

I was stuck at LCY awaiting for departure to AMS, but thankfully my secretary booked me on a British Airways flight today (which is rare - I usually only fly BA). Whilst my flight ended up being cancelled (after spending about 90 mins on board at LCY), I am lucky to not have been on a KL aircraft as BA had the air conditioning going the full time, making the cabin very comfortable. I raise this here as all the KL flights I have recently boarded were like saunas, and after asking for the a/c to be turned on, i'll get one of two answers from KL cabin crew: 1. this is KL policy as it saves the environment, or 2. a/c only works after being airborne (which is obvious BS, and got me in quite a long discussion with a purser on a recent flight to BOD who insisted it is impossible to have a cool aircraft whilst on the ground).

irishguy28

Your user name serves not only as an apt description of said plane, but also of said purser!

(On the ground, all aircraft can be connected to an external power unit which is used to power the A/c - and other systems - rather than draining the on-board power)

johan rebel

... just happens to save KL money?

In my experience KL is indeed exceptionally stingy when it comes to running AC on the ground.

I've even been on a couple of flights where upon arrival at the gate on a hot day, the purser made an announcement asking all pax in window seats to close the blinds before disembarking, so that pax boarding for the next flight would not get cooked in their seats.

Johan

Xandrios

Boarding at ATH a few days ago all blinds were closed. But, AC must have been running as otherwise it would have gotten real hot real fast in that burning sun.

Erwin10

Luckily you are able to walk through the whole non Schengen part. Must say I like the lounge seats in the beginning of the non Schengen area though.

irishguy28

Congrats on your first post after 3 years of lurking!

Hope you eventually got to where you needed to be and that you are not still waiting at AMS!

EricVdb

I do know Schiphol limits the use of the onboard airconditioning "engine" to temps above 25(?). At that temperature a tube full of people Wiwill still heat up quickly.

KLM has been sued when using it below this limit, but did win the courtcase.
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/452672/klm-wint-aircozaak-van-inspectie
(In Dutch)

And I am not under the impression the mobile airconditioning units are up to the task in the current weather, they can't get a 737 cool, let alone a 777.

johan rebel

Are you referring to the APU?Surely they use ground power as long as the aircraft is at the gate?

Years ago I boarded a KL MD-11 at JRO. It was a very noisy experience, as the #3 engine was kept running for the entire time the aircraft was on the ground. The captain later told me that the APU was out of order, the airport did not have any GPUs, so they just decided to keep an engine running to power the AC.

Johan

Lawrious

To power the air conditioning you need the APU turned on, which for the uninitiated, is the small turbine in the rear of the aircraft used to provide power for main engine start-up. The main engines will then take over powering the on-board systems (incl. air-con). Using this for long periods will significantly burn through your fuel. Most airports are now banning the use of the APU for anything other than starting the engines on pushback. You can use pre-conditioned air that's pumped into 737 aircraft, but, I am not sure how often that's used.

sbams

Thanks for your sympathy. I, along with thousands of others, was there. People did the best they could under the circumstances

caliform

Hope you got to wherever you were going!

KLBGO

theultimateflyer

Xandrios

Opinions differ. Personally I'd say that the airlines are the ones you have a contract with. Its up to them to make sure that they have reliable access to fuel. Is a power cut unforeseen circumstances, or is it something they should have anticipated and have a backup prepared for?

I'm leaning towards that they should have been able to have multiple/independent systems. Not just for redundancy, but having multiple (competing) sources for fuel may even drive down the price somewhat. Fuel is something extremely critical to their business - I believe they should have had better prepared to overcome these problems.

Having said that...the Dutch news widely reported that compensation would not be due as it was something unforeseen.