Yeah, must have been. Dunno why that I didn't think of that immediately.

AMS-BOS, Aug 19. Choice of meals but no menu; no idea about booze (not drinking) but drinks offered in plastic cups. You 'unwrap' food yourself; the regular WBC offering of a large dish, side salad, cheese and crackers, dessert. Nothing afterwards. Breakfast offered about 50 minutes before landing; a quiche with the hamburger fixings of crispy onions and sauce (??? where did the burger go? it was bad anyway, but...), a sweet apple pie. Tea and coffee served in plastic too.

It was fine.

As everybody knows, the virus that's terrorizing the world only sticks to glass, not plastic.

Johan

TXL->AMS and then AMS->NCE in Economy. Service pretty much as usual, except only drinks drinks available in cans, small bottles, and tea/coffee were available, so in other words neither still nor sparkling water available. I haven't tried to get any booze.

I have flown AMS-SFO on Monday in J (KL605), it was exceptionally empty plane (B777) and I happened to be the only pax in J cabin. When it comes to service, from food and wine perspective the catering is still slightly reduced (2 choices of hot meal, no champagne (don't know about other alcohol since I ended up happy with beer) and no bread, just crackers). The meal itself was fine and J quality, same for the second meal (no choice). On this side it's behind AF on CDG-SFO which is virtually pre-covid 19. Nonetheless, being the solo J pax in the entire 777 I got personalized service :D:D:D as if you were flying P. That is have my meals any time (was told to let them know about 20 minutes to heat it up), and offered anything more (a.k.a extra snack / nuts, sandwich or a third meal) and endless supply of beer. That said my belly was extremely full and I lost count of how much beer I had.

KL641 AMS-JFK in J. Service very good - 5 pax in cabin and "drunken chicken" for lunch. Not gourmet but good enough. No champagne. Wine in mini bottles. For me - lots of diet coke with refills.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5cf2d557ec.jpg

Flying NRT - AMS and AMS - CDG in Y next week. Any idea of what kind of service I can expect ? Kind of worried I'm gonna be stuck with a soggy sandwich wrapped in plastic for an 12h flight..

Hi Digicola,

For AMS - CDG, rest assured that you don't risk to get a soggy sandwich... In Y, it's more likely you will only get the KLM slice of cake and its companion 10cl cup of water as a snack.

KL602 LAX-AMS (777-200). Service was so-so. We were given two options: "Chicken or vegetarian pasta". The chicken tasted alright. It was served ~20 minutes after take-off and they were back to clear the trays in the same amount of time....never to be seen again until the end of the flight.

Breakfast was some egg thing along with a small bit of granola with berries and some bread (sorry, no pictures). Same situation as everyone else is reporting, no champagne, wine in mini bottles and no liquor. The head purser was great but the rest of the crew ranged from nice to surly. I got barked at for using the front lav. The mini-J cabin was blocked 48 hours out and was used by crew the entire flight. My call button was never answered despite them asking that that's how the want you to ask for anything. On AF, I waited no more than 20 seconds.

After having flown AF on the outbound, it was night and day. If time allows, I'll now always try to fly AF when flying long-haul.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d7ae83e467.jpg

Oh, that's just great!

I guess that answering the call button is a bit difficult if you are spending the entire flight relaxing in the mini-J cabin!

It's astounding that some FAs still haven't figured out that their jobs are on the line, and that it would therefore be in their personal interest to give those still willing to fly the best service they possibly can under the current circumstances. Decisions taken and rules imposed by authorities and airlines have already made the in-flight experience much less pleasant (or even more unpleasant, depending on your perspective), so it could even be argued that it would behoove the FAs to bend over backwards and go the extra mile to make the flight more bearable for their passengers. Low load factors in longhaul J should make it even easier to properly serve premium fare passengers. And as far as I know, nobody has ever gotten C-19 from bending over backwards, so it should be pretty risk free too.

Johan

What a wierd experience that was. Firstly, Narita T1 North was ghost town with only 2 flights departing on that day. Was offered an upgrade to J for around 900€, didn't take it.

Boarding was pretty normal except for the mandatory masks of course. We were told not to move from our seats for plane weight distribution issues, didn't think 30 passengers on a 777 could cause problems.

First meal was served on the tiniest tray ever and was made of one hot dish (pasta), potato salad and fruit all in plastic and we were served drinks with it (wine and beer were available).

Then window shades were lowered, lights dimmed and the crew disappeared until about 3h in when they went around giving plastic bags to people?? These bags contained 2 kitkat bars, a 2 slices of bread/cake, crackers, some cheese, a can of coke, little biscuits and a banana. This was just bizarre but oh well at least they were generous with the quantities, my blood sugar levels definitely skyrocketed as I was lethargic for the rest of the flight. We were also given soggy sandwiches wrapped in plastic...

Kudos for that 1 flight attendant that decided to walk around the cabin twice during the flight, thats more than any of her colleagues can claim.

1h before landing we were given some kind of eggy bread pastry. It was warm which was appreciated but it was so small...

So I don't know, I didn't know what to expect and ended up being fine during the flight. I just wished the meals were a bit more balanced and that the 2nd "hot meal" wasn't so small. Can't wait for things to go back to normal.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f84cf63fb0.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...00abfcb707.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d423bd9d34.jpg

I had a short conversation with the purser yesterday about my pet peeve, breakfast served at lunch time. She mentioned that she worked a morning flight a few weeks ago where it turned out that catering had made a mistake, and loaded Caesar salads. From Berlin, not Frankfurt. I did remember to ask.

Funny how they can repeatedly make such a mistake now that they have all of two different shorthaul meals to prepare and load.

Nothing much wrong with that breakfast and salad, they're fine, but they are getting a little bit boring by now, even though the salad doesn't always come with the same dessert.

Johan

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...794e376fd2.jpg
Morning CDG-AMS KL1230 this week in J : Cinnamon roll (which was good to tell the truth) with bottle of water.


Also flew AMS-LIS KL1695 in J : Classic box with Caesar salad (no pics because I was not hungry), wine and beer available. Flight attendant was really pro.

Special Meals
 

Any idea on a timeline for when special meals will be offered on KLM?

Anybody's guess, I suppose.

They have no doubt cut KLM Catering Services Schiphol to the bone, leaving them with a skeleton staff producing two kinds of shorthaul J meals and pared-down longhaul meals on a simplified assembly line. Adding special meals and thus complexity is something they most likely want to avoid for as long as possible. Since everybody knows that special meals are especially virus prone, they have a good excuse.

Johan