Maestro Ramen

Funny you mention that but I dont recall the lights being forced dimmed across the entire cabin at any point. Looks like it depended on the individuals.

Managed to get a good 90mn nap but I am known to easily sleep while the sun shines.

And woke up just in time to not miss the kroketje with so many bread layers that you can hardly taste the filling!

flyerCO

I get the i picked window, I control it thought. On shorter flights I think this is fine. However on 10+hr flights people are wanting to sleep.. They provide overheard lights. Allows you to see without blinding the whole cabin.

johan rebel

If people want to sleep in the middle of the day, then they can use eye masks. No reason to plunge the entire cabin into darkness.

I'm sure overhead lights are great, but how exactly do they help me look out the window?

As for blinding the whole cabin, a single open blind, or even several, will not have that effect. As Maestro Ramen pointed out, you can't even see any window at all from the middle seats. And if you are in a window seat, well then you can control your own window blinds.

In certain situations, depending on cabin configuration, sun angle, etc., light may for instance fall on a neighbor's IFE screen. I'm considerate enough to take that into account and adjust the blinds accordingly. I usually have between two and four windows to play with, I only need one to look out of and provide me with daylight. And that blind I can close partway if necessary. All this works fine with ordinary old-fashioned blinds, but not on a 787.

On my most recent Dreamliner flight (midmorning departure, early evening arrival, so a daytime flight), I had four windows, but could not control them individually. I could dim all, or none. Fine, so none it was. The configuration was of the staggered pod kind, and the adjacent aisle seat was unoccupied anyway. At some point during the flight the windows were suddenly dimmed and locked. I protested, the purser apologized, and that was that. I noticed that as soon as I undimmed my windows, several other pax did too. I'm apparently not the only one who picks a window seat for a reason.

On night flights, I sleep. That's what I usually do at night. Some other pax don't, they have their reading light on, or stare at the IFE screen. More than just a handful on many flights. The cabin crew can dim the windows as much as they want, those screens will keep glowing. Some weeks ago there was a guy across the aisle who had the IFE running all night long. No problem, I wear an eye mask. Even at night.

I note with satisfaction that AA has instructed its FAs to never dim and lock, as each pax should be left in control of his own experience.

Boeing seriously over-engineered the Dreamliner windows. Unnecessary complexity and cost where simple and cheap blinds would have done the job, as they do on all other passenger aircraft.

Johan

Xandrios

The problem with that though, is that cabins on long haul flights typically have a mix of pax originating from all parts of the world. Sure, if you originate from AMS and you fly AMS-JFK in the afternoon then it would make a lot of sense to enjoy the daylight. But if your itinerary is NRT-AMS-JFK, originating from NRT at 10AM (Likely having started your travel day at 6AM) then that is not quite the same. Flights are always a mix of international pax, all on different timezones, so allowing for people to sleep when they would like is - in my opinion - something to accommodate for.

And even on nightflights, when departing from the Americas to Europe for instance, there is always somebody who believes that its a good idea to lift the blinds at sunrise 4hrs before arrival - waking up everybody in the row(s) around. Sleeping on planes is hard enough - I don't need other people waking me up just because they cannot sleep and are bored

johan rebel

Not always. It varies greatly, depending on route, airline etc. JNB - AMS on KL, for example, is likely to have very few, if any.

Those who want to sleep during the day are easily accommodated: masks and ear plugs. These are even provided for free in premium cabins.

I also fail to see why those who wish to sleep should take precedence over those who do not. Why should an entire cabin be plunged into darkness just because a few want to sleep? And those sleepers may well want to sleep at different times, and for different lengths of time. Should the cabin perhaps be kept dark the entire time the plane is at cruising altitude? Just in case somebody somewhere wants to take a nap?

Dreamliner FAs dim and lock the windows just because they can, as if they were kindergarten teachers imposing a forced collective nap on the kids, willing or not. On all other aircraft they can't, and that's a good thing.

Sunrise at 39,000 ft can be really spectacular, I get why some people would want to enjoy the show.

On night flights I almost always skip breakfast, and sleep right through the service. Even with all the cabin lighting on and trolleys trundling down the aisle an eye mask and earplugs will do the trick. The mask also blocks the odd beam of sunlight.

Bottom line: on night flights almost everyone wants to sleep (although it never ceases to surprise me how many people want a full meal with all the bells and whistles in the dead of night), so the minority who don't should be considerate. During the day it's the other way around. Want to sleep? Put on a mask, pull the blanket over your head, and get on with it. In the meantime I'll enjoy the view out the window and not bother anybody.

Way OT again. Sorry again.

Johan

mlin32

ex-IAD to anywhere is usually poor catering regardless of airline. That said, I regretted consuming this Economy meal of meatballs and slushy potatoes- not sure what behooved me to eat it.



On the plus side, the Americans seem intent on using as much single-use plastic as possible, so thankfully the meal didn't taste like wood as we were given plastic cutlery and cups.

flyerCO

Flew AMS-CPT today (2nd). They announced the revamped program once in air.

Coach doesn't get alcohol except at meal. Non-alcoholic drinks can be had at anytime. However only available by going to rear galley.

They announced business had changes, but only change was bag of nuts placed at seat before boarding. Everything else was normal.

Flight was full with TeamNL athletes.

Milkman

POS-AMS-CPH over the weekend. On POS-AMS we could not even get coffee with the meal/dinner service. They had not prepared it as "they expected pax to go to sleep after dinner" (it was a tailwind flight, only 8h in the air). I could have possibly had some from the galley if really necessary, but I foujd it quite astonishing that coffee was stripped from the main dinner. I had a lightly curried chicken with rice - not the worst I've had on KL and definitely better than the meatballs we were served out of AMS. The starter was a quinoa salad that I had a weird off taste, it actually tasted like it was rotten. Gave up after one bite. Apple crumble desert which I also skipped. Served bread roll, but no butter or even margarine.

The breakfast was a wrap of scrambled eggs - a lot of carbs and very little egg (which was probably powdered egg anyways). The coffee brewer had been activated in the mean time and I was proactively offered real liquid milk in stead of the chemical powder "creamer".

The Schengen lounge was a kindergarten. Screaming toddlers everywhere and underwhelming buffet selection. One buffet area was closed off altogether.

On AMS-CPH (op by KLC E90) was offered the usual egg sandwich and opted for a Coke Zero as beverage. Not catering related, my better half and I were changed seat due to aircraft change, from row 11 to 24. Peculiar way of treating your FFs (Gold and Silver respectively) when changing aircraft.

Conclusion; I was once again reminded why I prefer AF over KL, but having a direct flight from POS to a major gateway in Europe has been high up on my wish list for many years.

Maestro Ramen

Confirming same trend. No PDB, but rest of service normal. Cabin crew helpful and not service averse at all.

Dinner was choice of braised beef, thai chicken or chicken ravioli.

Lobster salad or morell soup for starter.

Quality of food was decent, not exceptional.

Bring your own PDB

Lobster salad with side salad (no complaint, was good)

Braised beef with veg and not so nice gratin.

Breakfast, salmon with cheese, chia seed with fruit, and sorry looking pancake with fruit. Tatl breakfasts are always a bit underwhelming, this wasn't actually too bad.

Maestro Ramen

And now the trivia:

Airplane got "downgraded" from 78X to 772 (must have gone tech or something) with the 2-2-2 diamond seats, but that's actually not too bad. (Think they give you a bit more space than the zodiac seats)

I also didn't find the 787 particularly silent compared to the 777 (and both don't hold a candle to the A350).

When deplaning they showed a video I haven't seen before with asking each row to remain completely seated until the row in front has exited the plane due to Covid.

Needless to say precisely nobody respected that.

Connection to BUD the gate staff were encouraging people to pile up tightly in the tiny area after BP scanners, completely against any social distancing.

flyerCO

Weird. My AMS-CPT flight was also downgraded from 789 to 772. (Caused a lot of problems with J seats needing to be reassigned) Even gate agents and plane crew had no clue why the change and changed so late. It was still 789 when I checked in via OLCI about 30 hours before AMS-CPT flight. (I was connecting from IAH)

I just figured they had decided to switch to 772 a day early (schedule was planned for switch day after I flew, which is why I booked the day I did)

Fabo.sk

Well, they've gone and done it. I now officially have 0 interest in flying J.

johan rebel

Eeks!

Those "meatballs" look more like mealworm baitballs. You should have taken them home and used them to catch yourself a nice big catfish or other mud-dwelling bottom feeder.

Johan

johan rebel

AMS-CPH has been a right mess for several weeks now, especially KL1127/1128. Those two flights have been canceled plenty of times, and the ones that weren't, were almost all delayed. Up to an hour, or even longer. I guess this is mostly related to technical issues with Embraer E195-E2 which is supposed to operate those flights. So far, I've only flown on an E2 once. On all other flights a E90 was substituted

Two days ago I had a choice between KL1127 and KL1129. Fortunately I picked the latter, and arrived a few minutes early. KL1127 was over 1½ hours late, and only just beat us to CPH. As a real bonus, I got a Caesar salad instead of that dire breakfast box!

I could not bring myself to take another Caesar picture, but can report that the salt & pepper shakers in the shape of cute little red Dutch clogs have now been replaced by sachets. I don't mind, I've always lacked the dexterity to deal with those clogs.

Had long conversations with both the cabin supervisor and the FA about the EBC catering. We once again all agreed that it has sunk to a level that's beyond embarrassing. They said they hear this from pax all the time, and that they mention this in their flight reports all the time. To no avail, of course.

Maybe KLM got a really good deal on a shipping container crammed with 10m Greta spoons that was found abandoned in some dodgy port after the smugglers had removed the shipment of cocaine hidden under those spoons.

Johan

johan rebel

Good thing you didn't book the 5th.

Johan