Yesterday I flew from Newcastle to Milan MXP. I tried to check in on Sunday but it would not let me do it by internet. I called first thing Monday to get the emergency exit on the first leg and second leg as was on an award ticket in Y.

Good job I checked in by phone as I only got to the airport 30 mins before daprture and as usual the staff at Newcastle are so helpful. Whisked thorugh to the gate and boarded last. However I noticed my seat had been changed to 2C but all the row 1 was empty, so as I was last on board I jumped in there. This was now a F70 not the F100 or 737 they are using these days.

They were serving alchohol today but three weeks ago there were not. However I was talking to the steward on baoard and he confirmed that KLC will be removing free alchohol off its flights to save money. He told me many people complain about getting something one day and nothing the next.

Anyway I have just spent 20 minutes checking in on line and I am confirmed in 15A and 15D both 737 with mammoth leg room in Y, better than anyhting you get in new europe select and its only a 2 seat config. It will not let me print the boarding card and tells me to go to the check in desk !!!! doooh

Fair play to KLM though, I only booked this last Friday and it gave me a 50% discount for the web award so at such short notice to give me a seat for only 12500 miles.

I thought I better write something nice in case that jerk from KLM FD is watching and is now looking to screw up my bookings.

I was told I had been moved to 4F on MXP - free upgrade as I am PE.

Went to the lounge by C and there was about 20 people trying to get in. So I thought I will go and use the Globe Ground lounge on my Star Alliance card.

What a difference in there, its so quiet, people sat around working ??

ITs funny in a way as there was a sqaudron of mice also running around enjoying themselves.

I had almost three hours to kill and planned to work also. About 5pm a women came and cleared away all the spirits and put out a wide choice of wines ?? not sure what that was all about.

Got to the gate to find half of Japan waiting to get on the plane. Dont worry I thought we will have priority boarding, then I saw the plane a F100. NOw I was origionally told we would fly form C now we are almost in Belgium at the end of D and how are they going to get all these people on a F100.

Answer, they dont! I deployed the pushing in to the front mode as it was obvious no priority boarding was going to happen and for sure 4F on a F100 is window in a row of 3.

Got on board pretty quick and watched as the plane completely filled up.

Out came the dreaded sandwiches and yes free alchohol.

Many passengers were complaining around me that they had paid biz classtickets for this flight.

Ah well, who says Ryanair are all bad.

I had a similar experience with kLM.

I did NUE to MAN via AMS in Y yesterday (lucky really because Y was the only class on the plane) and both flights had some service. I know some people couldn't care less if they get a sandwich or not but the morning had been hectic (not helped by having too many Tequila slammers with the customer the night before) so the Tuna sandwich was the first thing I'd eaten all day. For some reason, the cans of beer were bigger on the NUE-AMS flight, not that I was drinking beer (it was too early).

As often seems to be the case the connect time at AMS was short - had the inbound plane been 10-15 minutes late I may have struggled to get to the gate on time. I think this would be a barrier to using kLM when travelling for leisure for me (when travelling on business I try not to care). The AMS to MAN flight was overbooked and a few of the passengers had boarding passes with the same seats which wasn't particularly impressive.

I get the impression that the flag carriers are flapping about a bit over the budget threat at the moment (worse case scenario being LH who will not even sell you service on some flights). I'm certainly starting to appreciate the budget carriers who pretty much guarantee food (or drink) if you want to pay for it.

Another seriously good way to continue to piss FD members off is to send them stupid packages in the mail that not only cost a fortune to send out but really prove that KLM marketing do live in an ivory tower. Yes we have a budget so we must spend it.

How can you warrant sending a stupid box out by mail all over Europe and even the world I would guess and still hack away at your key customers who are now I guess dangling by a thread and wondering what on earth they pay for to get from A to B with KLM when there are many more pleasant options and cheaper to. They continue to cut back on service but spend a fortune on crap like this.

This stupid box had a tiny roll out map of the world and a sheet with tiny yellow peel off dots on to stick on the map to remind yourself where in the world you have not yet been??? It was supposed to be promoting extra points with the duty free at Amsterdam.

Best of all you would think that the high cost of sending these out would warrant making sure they get to the customers.

The label on my box was as follows

Steve Fenton
XXXXXXX house
England
Postcode

What a bunch of knackers thought up this one ?? and I dread to think the overall cost as I am sure the postal services will charge for returning a large proportion of incorrectly addressed boxes.

The cost of this would pay to clean some of thy flying garbage cans they now use and maybe pay for extra gaffer tape to hold things in place.

Steve is that KLM finally realising that you should not be messed about so they are giving you the supermodel service.
Hope the limo met you at the other end.

That must be the gang from the now closed D lounge. Guess they had to go somewhere.

Notice how 1 yellow dot covers all the UK and another for AMS means you have been to several countries in Europe!

I got a little excited when I seen the box, thought it may be some sort of genuine thank you for flying KLM (thats when one gets on an aicraft with KLM on its fuselage to go somewhere). What an idiot I am.

I have to say having visited too many airports to count around the world, I find the staff at Newcastle consistantly good in many ways. They are not only a credit to themselves but the various companies they represent.

Oh apart from that little **** who collects the bagage trolleys who nicked by box of wine.

And those jobsworth merchants in yellow jackets who think they are part of the SAS protecting britains airports by making sure any car unloading passengers does so with wheels still turning depsite having lines of empty taxi's sat behind him.

I nearly forgot, that pratt who thought up the wonderful maze to get to the airport to drop people off.

Thats about covered it I think !!!!

More tales of really inconsistant service from KLM. Today I did the MAN-AMS-NUE route again. The first suprise was that they provided a proper plane for MAN-AMS this time (a 737 rather than an F100) and this was not a City Hopper flight. The second suprise was that the sandwich was inferior (cheese and nothing) and unlike last time no alchol (it really was too early for drinkies anyway).

The AMS-NUE flight this time was a very lightly loaded F50 (yup, one of those "magnificent men in their flying machines" jobbies) run by City Hopper. The service on this flight was superior in every respect to MAN-AMS flight including a better sandwich, sweet and the option of alchol (still to early for drinkies IMHO).

I'm so glad that they've found a nice home - I was worried about them

It's never too early!!!


If I ever got on a flight (at least up-front) and they didn't ever offer a Gin and Tonic I think I would have a conniption fit. It used to be apple juice all day long on flights. Now I have moved on.

Good God! Fallen into a time warp? Or maybe one G&T too many?

Sorry sir, this is a no alchol flight

Regards
I (looking forward to re-discovering KLM's ever improving service in April)