787 J class: seat maintenance woes
 

I recently had seat issues on both legs of a J class long haul flight from AMS-KIX on two separate 787s.
Outward:
- Very uncomfortable seat. I could feel a metal rib pressing on the backs of my upper thighs. I sat on two pillows for the duration of the flight.
- 30 mins from landing a plastic plate on the floor gave way, exposing the sub-floor! The FA took the plate away for storage elsewhere.
Return:
- The carpeted mound under the foot seat was loose and rattling. There was a clear gap. When in socks, my toes could slide under it easily.
- The screen Release button was jammed and had no effect. The screen was stuck fast. Luckily, the purser came round and demonstrated the workaround: press the Release button, then whack the side of the screen hard with the palm of your hand. Like you would with an old television set! Unbelievable...

Was I just unlucky, or is KLM maintenance a bit hit and miss? Like their solution to a stuck display.

Those 787 seats feel very cheap.. I've seen a lot of those break down or be broken. Wiring in screens acting up, stuff getting loose, cracks in plastic, seats being out of order all together. My brother once grabbed the armrest that's supposed to slide down and it came out.. It was already patched together before with two tie-wraps

So yeah, always handled greatly by senior purser, but seats are meh

Might be why they're not installing the same ones in te 787-10 perhaps

Thanks for your reply, Wunk.
A business class seat that is out of action is losing revenue for the airline.
Maybe this is not an area in which to cut costs too much.

Interesting part of it is, that these seats are the same type as in the Delta A330's (which are great) just customised differently..

In terms of comfort I prefer KLMs 777/747 J seats, that you can raise the foot rest independently on those is something I miss on the 787, as well they generally seem more comfortable. My wife had the sticky screen on the 787 last year as well. The FAs tried to get it out but failed, I managed to get it out with a little force.

Customer Support offered me 10k miles. Seems a bit cheap for broken seat issues on 2 x long-haul trips in WBC.
Maybe next time I should engage the Purser during flight and negotiate a settlement?

This is clearly ridiculous, they recently gave me 5000 miles on a little accident on a cheap EU KL ticket in Y!
I sent them a little feedback regarding KL rebooking system which kicked me out of the flight while I still made it but didn't know I had been kicked out (text + email came later on). I wasn't expecting any compensation, my intention was to help to improve the system.
I was also mistakenly waved through by the desk people after my BP flashed red, discovered my seat taken, purser told me I wasn't checked in on the flight, walked all the way back to the gate and given a seat towards the back on an exit row instead of aisle EC.
I only related the incident and told them it would be best to only kick people out and rebook when connection time is <0 min or when the gate is closed.
The purser of that flight discretely offered me to seat in J for the hassle as I stepped on the plane last and even offered me the extra J meal she had so I also sent kudos to her in that same message.

I am only FB Silver, so I expect that affects any compensation.
However, I would expect KLM to want to retain WBC passengers.
I may try a follow-up message. But it took them 2 weeks to reply to the first one.