Solevita

Must just be lucky me that gets the Cityhoppers from the dungeons of B1-6

As for AF, I mean it's not possible full stop. One of the advertised advantages of Elite and Elite+ is the ability to select standard seats at least for free in advance. However AF seem to not open up selection until checkin. Tomorrow I'm flying 3 AF legs, both HOP and AF. None of them allowed seat selection before checkin. The 2 KLM legs I'm flying tomorrow I've been able to pick a seat from booking, as always happens with KLM. I have been able to pick seats in advance on AF, but that's definitely an exception rather than standard.

What really got me today, was checkin opened for my 1st AF flight 00.15 this morning. It's departing from GOT, so there's no logical way of connecting to this flight thus being able to checkin earlier. I completed checkin within 2 minutes, noticed when selecting seats that several were already unavailable, and when I got the boarding pass emailed at 00.17 I was sequence 16? Were there really 15 others with nothing better to do at 00.15 than wait for checkin to open and beat me? AF certainly operate in mysterious ways!

irishguy28

In that case, you are an Amsterdam-originating passenger as far as the second flight is concerned, and will have been levied the fees accordingly.

Of course, if you choose your carriers appropriately, although you will pay the fees that both an arriving passenger and a departing passenger pay - rather than the cheaper fees levied on transiting passengers - you at least can avoid the security checks during your "self-connect" as long as you stay airside.

johan rebel

Look on the bright side: you are in good company, instead of being the odd man out.

Johan

Mcflyneo

I thought HOP! never has pre-seat selection but on the other hand, their flights are barely full(my experience at least) so i always end up on row 1 or 2 anyway.
And indeed often but not always, AF does allow seat selection álso on KL flights when sometimes KL does not allow it. Once in a blue moon i fly in the back and it's fine. KL c-class or eco is actually more comfortable(not always) than AF, but only on the 737. Cityhopper e-comfort is not worth paying for imo.
1/4 of my flights is on KL metal, so i probably just got used to airbus. I'd rather fly a packed AF narrowbody than a packed 737(in eco!) the horror of CDG flights

Fabo.sk

I'm not really a representative sample though I'll admit. I've only got a couple of E-Jet flights and only to Prague.

I've only flown on AF between Prague, Paris and Amsterdam so far. Seat selection has always been possible, but expensive and poor choice of seats.
Never flown HOP! or JOON yet.

Automatic check-in maybe? I'm not sure if KL offers it.
Otherwise I do get notifications on my phone when checkin opens, so maybe just someone had their phones at them and then it's a question of seconds to check in.

Agreed - I don't check fees usually. Then it's a question if you count self-connections, in which case EU to EU security can happen, or if you only count official connections, in which case it only happens if you go out of the secure zone, which is fairly hard to do by mistake in AMS, at least if not bussed in.

I've never had a KL flight where seat selection wasn't possible, except maybe when the flight was operated by CityJet.
EC in E-Jets is not as good as in 737s, possibly, but then E-Jets are pretty good even in the back. And you do lose one of the EC advantages, being in the front and being fast out of the airplane. Not much help if you then just wait in the bus.
I still occasionally pay for it. 5 ish EUR is pittance.

Mcflyneo

I understand the choice to pay for comfort, but as mentioned before, i chose MR's as my temp. hobby(and it has payed off), thus i try to keep them as cheap as possible. Lets say hypothetically i would pay 5-ish for each MR segment, that adds up to a 5th of my ICA ticket(where e-comfort and status have significantly more added value).
I only fly comfort when i have enough miles to pay for it, not with cash.

Ber2dca

My main connections are Schengen-EU to Non-Schengen EU (and vice versa) and Non-Schengen EU to U.S (and back). I don't use CDG that much but when I do I always seem to have to go through security again which hasn't been the case in AMS for a couple of years now. For me that alone is a defining difference as it allows me to book shorter connections and is overall just plain more convenient.

Regarding the lounges, I'm not a big lounge eater (I avoid buffets in general) so I can't comment on that. In terms of seating the Crown Lounge is no worse than the 'regular' CDG AF lounges. And given I usually just want a diet coke, I quite like the burger place style soda machines in AMS, didn't see those in CDG.

AlicorporateUK

Agreed. Whilst generally speaking I'm not particularly keen on lounge food, I do however spend a significant amount of time in airports and, as such, lounges do also play their part when it comes to choosing airline A or airline B. The Crown lounges are possibly the worst in terms of food plus the rather noisy environment makes them far from appealing, reason why I tend to avoid KLM (when I can, needless to say). That aside, they have a pretty decent UK network and transferring at Schiphol is pretty plain sailing so, as you say, average overall.

G

sbams

Whether that is to be commended or not is debatable

Mcflyneo

It occurs to me on cdg-ams flights, regardless of the designated ticket number (057/074). Bear in mind that there are multiple variables like the issuing agent, accounting to denied seat selection as well.

RabbitIYH

The transfer between 2F and 2E-K is I believe the only one when you do not have to go through security again and I never quite understood why it was different from 2E-L and 2E-M.

NickB

You have to go through security in one direction (non-Schengen to Schengen) but not in the other (Schengen to non-Schengen). It is true that you will not have to go through security at AMS when going from EU-non Schengen (eg LON-AMS-Schengen) whereas you would in CDG so AMS has an advantage here but it would not be a deal killer for me. On booking shorter connections, it seems to me that the precise timing of flights is going to be far more significant than the fact that KL has a theoretical MCT which is 10 minutes shorter than AF. Personally, on intra-European, I would allow pretty much the same time at AMS or CDG. Even though you can theoretically book a 40 mins connection at AMS, IMO such a tight connection would be risky. I tend to regard anything under 55-60 mins other than an intra-Schengen connection as potentially risky whether at AMS or CDG .

Are you sure about that? There is no reason why there should be a security check from 2F to 2L/2M. Most of my connections are from Schengen to the UK, which means typically 2F-2E/K or 2G-2E/K and neither require going through security.

Mirk

Thanks for the precision. I preferred to say most since I haven't checked if it was for all of them.

Goldorak

Fabo.sk

Could be. So far pretty much all of my KL flights were bought either on KL web or AF web.