The KLM erosion thread
 

Reading through this forum I strongly feel that many amongst us have had enough of it. A lot of dissatisfaction can be heard when KLM once again erodes the quality of their product and frequent flyer benefits.

When reading individual cases we may sound a bit like a bunch of grumpy old bats. But the grumpiness has nothing to do with these individual cases. It is the result of a long history of erosion experienced by us, the frequent flyer.

We seem to have bumped into 1 or 2 issues where KLM seems to part us of money without any logic, product or extra service behind it. I have marked them with an (!)
If somehow it can be proved they are not true, please let it it know ASAP, because I think these issues weigh even heavier than the ongoing erosion issues.

Let’s sum up what eroded over the past years to show to anyone that we have the right to complain about any topic, even if it seems to be a small issue at first!

So far we have:

PRE APRIL FOOLS

Eroded


Cabin

• 3x3 Y seats in short haul C (should we reveal the overall poorness of ES in detail?)
• The slippery slope seat in WBC
• introduction of a middle seat in J-class (on 777) 2-3-2
• Introduction of cramped 3-4-3 Y-class configuration on 777

Flying Blue

• Disappearing of Royal Wing lounge
• Decrease of award availability
• No 100% Level miles on certain booking classes (some of which are 200 euros more than other Sky Team partners)
• No way to avoid these booking classes when making a reservation on line without "upgrading" to Flex fares.
• Upgrades from lower fare buckets now for miles + cash, and only on day of departure.
• Disappearance of dedicated PE helpdesk.
• no more unlimited lounge access with Platinum/Royal Wing card
• Depreciation of airmiles due to continuing increase of redemption levels.
• Disapearing of 100% free awards (all sorts of taxes need to be payed, some of them for the benefit for the airline)
• Decrease in Platinum Elite bonues from 125% to 100%
• Elite bonus no longer calculated including COS
• Reduction of C class bonus on intercontinental flights from 200% to 150%
• (!)Taxes on award tickets are often higher than taxes on payed tickets
• PE bonus reduced from 110 to 100%, longhaul CoS from 100 to 50%.

In flight

• Catering on short haul (Although slightly improved no too long ago, still miles away from what it used to be)
• Dog food Dorito bits
• The quantity of long haul Y meals
• Deterioration of catering in WBC, both quality and quantity
• no more choice of starter in WBC
• quality of wines on board is much reduced and advertised wines are often not on board
• reduction of the number of flight attendants on certain aircraft
• deteriorating in-flight kit
• no more magazines in Y-class

Ground

• Strong reduction in chances to be upgraded
• Much reduced selection of English and Dutch language newspapers and magazines in the lounges
• No more bottled water in the lounges
• No more champagne in the AMS lounges

Reservation/booking

• Restrictions on advance reservation of seats, both in Y and WBC.
• An internet booking fee
• A 0900 number to contact KLM when making a booking on line ( I should not have to pay to call them to give them my money)
• A credit card surcharge, even when using their FB American Express card
• No way to reserve seats on line
• The introduction of the "paid" select seating
• The introduction of the "paid" exit row and rows with only a 2 seat configuration
• Finger pointing between: 1. website help desk & 2. phone reservations & 3. FB FF program are all treated internally as if they are separate companies
• Numerous reports of technical difficulties with website. Booking website even harder to use woth Firefox and Safari browsers.
• Dramatic increase of C fares for some markets
• (!)when you cancel a non-flexible flight, the fuel surcharges suddenly seem to become part of the fare and are not refunded

Operations

• Cancelled flights are often listed as NOOPS. Basically one could say that it is a shot term schedule change, or a planned cancellation. This 'trick' keeps the flights out of the delay and cancellation statistics.
• Almost daily cancellation due to obvious shortage of aircraft

Other: Consensus (hard to prove but it is certainly how we see and feel it)

• 'NEP-OPS' Abuse of company travel privileges for KLM staff (upgrades of travelling KLM staff and their friends) to the point that paying customers risk losing their seats printed on their BP, choice of food or beverage, peaceful cabin, chance of fair or attentive service, chance of op-up, etc. (numerous reports of this on the forum to prove this case)

Other: Perhaps not necessarily eroded, but room for improvement

• Poor implementation of priority boarding
• Priority luggage tags that almost never work
• It takes up to 6 weeks to get the refund of your taxes when you cancel a ticket
  
• Shower capacity in AMS lounge does not match current policy nor meet related demand (seems to be improving)

Other: Open for discussion (they may be personal taste or caused by external factors. Further, of course all points are open for discussion)

• Seats in general. Comfort decreases with each new generation. (except for 738 and 739 Y seats).
• Outrageous fuel surcharges
• Outrageous award booking taxes
• Amenity kits
• Breakfast for Economy Class passengers on intercontinental flights (generally agreed it still used to be lots better in the past)

Improved

• The tratoria sandwich (quality seems to be deteriorating)
• The new short haul Y seats
• ability to book award travel more easily on AF
• IFE
• OLCI
• The Schengen lounge at Schiphol
• Selection of drinks and snacks at the lounges at Schiphol. Type of snacks change through the day.
• Much improved selection of French language newspapers and magazines in the AMS Schiphol lounges
• No longer advertising misleading "exclusive" prices in Dutch market
• Improved semy flex fare policy in Y
• Introduced possibility to select E instead of N when booking. (100% vs. 25% miles)
• Introduction of NEV3 seats on 77W

APRIL FOOLS

Eroded

• You've got to pay for extra legroom in Y
• AF F awards only available to elites
• Z fare gets 125% miles in business class
• Reduced mileage earning on most economy fares on a 25-50-75-100 scale
• AF F awards skyrocketing in price

Improved

• New award bucket reserved for elites with a 15% miles surcharge - i.e., 115% of a "classic" award
• Free access to certain "extra legroom seats" for plats
• J fare gets 175% miles in business class

POST APRIL FOOLS
Eroded

Improved

• Introduction of Economy Comfort

Let’s stay reasonable and factual. Please try to keep personal issues, personal tastes, non-implemented products and rumours aside.
Further, I would like to stress that 3 steps backwards and 1 step forward is still erosion!

That is not possible. :D

• Upgrades from lower fare buckets now for miles + cash, and only on day of departure.
• Deterioration of catering in WBC, both quality and quantity (I admit I'm comparing to what it was like eight+ years ago, but KL and I go back much longer than that. Maybe I should start comparing WBC to Royal Class :D?)
• Seats in general (comfort decreases with each new generation).
• Restrictions on advance reservation of seats, both in Y and WBC.
• Disappearance of dedicated PE helpdesk.
• Reduced FB elite and CoS bonuses

Johan

* reduction of the number of flight attendants on certain aircraft
* no more unlimited lounge access with Platinum/Royal Wing card
* deteriorating in-flight kit
* no more magazines in Y-class
* introduction of a middle seat in J-class (on 777)
* no more choice of starter in WBC
* Priority luggage tags that almost never work

* No 100% Level miles on certain booking classes (some of which are 200 euros more than other Sky Team partners)

* No way to avoid these booking classes when making a reservation on line without "upgrading" to Flex fares.

* An internet booking fee

* Outrageous fuel surcharges

* Outrageous award booking taxes

* A 0900 number to contact KLM when making a booking on line ( I should not have to pay to call them to give them my money)

* A credit card surcharge, even when using their FB American Express card

* No way to reserve seats on line

* The introduction of the "paid" select seating

* The introduction of the "paid" exit row and rows with only a 2 seat configuration

* An almost non existent Elite boarding procedure

I actually find the seats in 738's and 739's to be the best Y seats in the industry. They're very comfortable, much better than any other Y seats I've encountered. E.g. the Y seats on AF's A320 family are awful and pale in comparison. (The very worst Y seats I've encountered are on RO.)

Catering: European Y has changed stale cheese sandwiches for good sandwiches ^ on a fraction of flights at "Meal times :td::td: - which they make up, i'm sure, or maybe it's meal times in Oz or something) and all other flights you now eat dogfood dorito bits. Overall - :td:

I am taking the liberty to update my original post with your points, for general readabillity.

Apart from the section 'Eroded' I have included a section 'Other' and 'Improved'.

Actually, recently I flew NCE AMS in the morning on a fokker in ES. the Y sandwich was much much much better than the ES "thing". Fortunately, they had leftovers of Y sandwiches :)

Yeah, I think that most of us will agree that the Tratoria Y sandwiches are very tasty. Why don't they put them in the ES box? Together with a desert and a little something else it would make the ES box actually something to look forward to!

erosion:

* free award tickets eliminated and replaced with copy of Dutch Air Miles "miles & money" scheme of bogus fees and taxes; existing miles became severely devalued overnight

* miles continue to be made worth less due to continuing increases in redemption levels (e.g. Europe 123 - N. America C class, from 80K to 90K miles plus above mentioned extortionate fees)

* quality of wines on board is much reduced and advertised wines are often not on board

* finger pointing: 1.website help desk & 2.phone reservations & 3. FB FF program are all treated internally as if they are separate companies: the customer is stuck in the middle and treated poorly. (just try to buy a ticket on klm.com with a 100% earning fare class and a travel voucher - you will enter a twilight zone of dysfunctional company communication,personnel incompetence, unwillingness to serve, ...)

* KLM staff have become quite blatant in their use and particularly abuse of company travel privileges to the point that paying customers risk losing their seats printed on their BP, choice of food or beverage, peaceful cabin, chance of fair or attentive service, chance of op-up, etc.

improvement:

* ability to book award travel more easily on AF where business class is still slightly above minimum industry thresholds of acceptability

* darker shade of blue of KL livery introduced in the 90's looks somewhat nicer than the Korean Air style lighter shade of blue

* FB program encourages frequent flyers to fly other airlines therefore weaning once loyal, exclusive KL travellers from KL and introducing them to new, more attractive options

Added your points to the initial post. Took the liberty to leave sarcastic comments and personal tastes asside. "What is you favorit colour?" :)

And what is the definition of industry treshold of acceptabillity for business class award tickets? :rolleyes:

That would be coming from me.:p

Seriously, whether fully paid, discounted or paid for three times as an award (first extra for full miles, then using the miles then paying all the extra cash on top of the miles), the rapidly decreasing quality of the KL product is not really debated here, is it? I would love to hear factual arguments indicating that they are improving versus getting worse. I would love to have a reason to fly them again.

If you look at the airlinequality website (and other rating organisations for that matter) you can also see that in the past year(s) KL has been demoted from being a 4 star "real" airline to a 3 star airline with quite some depressing company in the 3 star line up.

Not to mention flatseats.com

• IFE
• OLCI

Johan

PE bonus reduced from 110 to 100%, longhaul CoS from 100 to 50%.

Not sure how much room for discussion that leaves.

Johan

Hear hear!
 

KL's 739 Y seats:

I agree and I argue this isn't a small achievement. The popular media mythology that all Y seats are the same is not believed or accepted by FT members but there does seem to be a pervasive suspicion that the differences in Y seat quality are small and that mean quality levels are very low.

I say it's all too easy with relatively large budgets and strong internal corporate justification to provide comfortable J seating. If your company can't get that right, give it up!

But Y is much, much harder to get right. There's less space, less money, and most importantly, less corporate will to improve the cabin. Some argue it's not even worth spending time or money on Y because it's too difficult to provide even a modicum of comfort.

Well done KL on repudiating the myths and actually providing us with good seats in Y on a common ac type, something that seems beyond almost all other operators (CO? NW?)

I haven't encountered Y on the AF A320 yet but it doesn't sound promising. I've only ever flown EP on AF (772), so that might account for my happy recollection of their comfort and service :p

If I am not mistaken, the reduction was made from 125% to 100% and the PE bonus used to be calculated including the COS bonus, not excluding. A very dramatic reduction indeed.

e.g. on a 1000 mile biz segment:

1000 miles
1000 COS
2500 PE bonus
---------
4500 miles then

vs. now

1000 miles
1000 PE bonus
500 COS
--------
2500 miles now

Well for positive improvements I would list:

Much improved Schengen-area lounge at AMS - with better seating, better range of drinks, better range of snacks (which change throughout the day), much better acoustic isolation of the TV (something missing from so many other lounges, sadly), and better availability of electricity sockets for laptops, etc. I remain really impressed by this lounge.

For negative things I would add:

Website has deteriorated and is now even harder to make a booking, using either Safari or Firefox. Yes, hard to actually give them money! I usually resort to Expedia now.

Techno

Negative:

In many "off" markets such as Turkey, not only has KL been raising their unpublished Biz prices, often by twice as much as they were in recent years, but has also made these fares much more restrictive. To shoot themselves in the foot even more, many of these fares are more expensive than more direct (or direct) rouings with often better airlines.

Personally, I believe the fact remains that KL/FB is one of the most inexpensive airlines in the Skyteam alliance (in Europe) that remains to make Elite Plus level. The airline is about to go down the drain but in the end, they are not bad if your travel is economy. In C, as full fare passenger, I am upset, but whenever I travel in economy they always live up to my expectations. They are not BA when it comes to SPA treatments etc... but then again, you would not make the same level with BA for the same amount of flights/price.

Completely agreed, I think that the general impression is that the crew actually do a good job.

I would like to add my personal view to that. They may be inexpensive, but they are also getting 'cheap'. And that is a shame for what was once considered one of the best airlines in the world.

Anyway...back to the facts now...

The new (I'm not sure how new?) longhaul Y meals I was served on trips to DAR and NBO lately were bit on the small side. Soup on the left, salad on the right and a dessert cake in the middle, is this standard Y grub now? I'd have preferred the ol' pasta or chicken, which was more of a proper meal (in lack of a better word).

KL will tell you that they have done this in order to save the environment. Less food = less weight = lower fuel burn, see?

Johan

I have spent considerable time cleaning up this thread tonight. I deleted several off-topic and trolling posts and removed quotes and references to them.

I commend Zembla for taking the initiative to create an objective and comprehensive list, and think it is a healthy exercise for forum members who may be questioning their loyalty to KLM as well as everyone at AMS should they care to absorb what's been contributed here.

Please keep responses confined to the topic at hand. We are pretty casual about off-topic posts in this forum, but the kind of trolling and navel-gazing going on in this thread was ridiculous.

Improved:

* Breakfast for Economy Class passengers on intercontinental flights
* Amenity kit in WBC
* General Inflight service
* 738's and 739's Y seats
* Award booking
* IFE

Ha ha! LOL.

The contents of the amenity kit have been downgraded over the years.

General inflight service is a subjective view point but I haven't noticed anything to improve it. Food in economy?

Award booking? How has this improved?

* Awards Europe to North America have increased from 80,000 to 90,000.

* I can no longer upgrade from economy to business on cheap fare.

* As the highest tier on Flying Blue/Flying Dutchman I could get any spare seat providing there was one available. Not any more I don't believe.

* Free tickets used to be FREE. You didn't even pay the taxes. Now the taxes run into hundreds of Euros! You even have to pay the fuel surcharge on KLM, which NOT a tax and therefore one shouldn't pay it.



You have a very strange and blinkered view of KLM.

Looking through blue-coloured glasses, me thinks?
I am surprised the word "enhanced" didn't show up or that no reference to a Peter Hartman interview was made.

Aw, come on! How long have you been flying KLM? I can assure you that the amenity kits have been getting worse for each new generation for as long as I can remember, and that's quite a few years. I've yet to see the latest incarnation, but in another post Halfdan describes the contents as "rubbish".

I actually think they should do away with the kits entirely, for a premium cabin they are frankly insulting. Rather put a basket with some toiletry essentials in the lavatory, and distribute socks + slumber shades separately (as they used to do back in the metal box amenity kit days, remember?).

Johan

Hmm, I read. that they have been upgraded very recently.

Unfortunately the bizarre high oil prices and Government taxes are to blame, not the airlines. Out of interest, are there airlines that still offer tickets that are 100% free?

I really do think the FA's have become friendlier, but you are right, that is subjective and a personal experience.

They have upgraded the amenity kits to even worst kits apparently!

I don't know if there are still airlines that offer 100% free tickets, but the other day I reserved a "free ticket" YUL-CDG-MXP-CDG-YUL and the tax bill was 363$$$ (CAD wich is now the same as USA). 363 $ looks like a huge amount of taxes to me! I tried booking a paying fare the same trip (same days, same flights) and there were "only" 260 $ of taxes... Go figure...

Ciao!

Are all your views based on KLM press releases?


This is where you are wrong, again.

A few years ago KLM would give you a free ticket. They would even cover the cost of the airport taxes.

Changing the policy on airport taxes is disappointing, but understandable. However, KLM also charge you the extortionate fuel surcharges which are NOT a tax. A tax is something which is collected on behalf of another party, such as airport passenger duty, or government taxes.

U.S. airlines for example are not allowed to class fuel surcharges as a tax, and they have to be part of the airfare.

Often a "free" ticket on KLM is more expensive than a revenue ticket on other airlines.

Fully agreed with you that airlines should not charge fuel (and whatever else) surcharges for award ticket. What also makes me mad is the fact that when you cancel a non-flexible flight, those fuel surcharges suddenly seem to become part of the fare and are not refunded (don't know if this is KLM policy however). But just for a point of balance, all airlines that have fuel surcharges for revenue tickets, also do this for award tickets (unless someone knows an exception?). Unfortunately KLM is by no means alone in this.

Still, it is an erosion as such, compared to either the completely free award tickets (think I had one of those, which defines my age just a bit more...) or to just charging the airport and government taxes & fees.

I believe U.S. carriers for one do not charge fuel surcharges on redemption tickets. Would like someone to confirm this however.

You will be pleased to learn that KL has introduced this customer friendly policy effective October 1.

Johan

I am still with you and continue to upgrade this list.
We seem to have bumped into 1 or 2 issues where KLM seems to part us of money without any logic, product or extra service behind it. I have marked them with an (!)
If somehow it can be proved they are not true, please let it it know ASAP, because I think these issues weigh even heavier than the ongoing erosion issues.

I only have experience with AA, but they do not make you pay the fuel surcharge on redemption tickets. As an example, a ticket in J FRA-ORD on AA costs $60 in taxes. Not exactly free, but at least they only charge the taxes that they need to pay to others. The KLM fuel surcharge goes directly into KLM's pocket and is entirely under KLM's control.

I generally agree that food and drinks have improved at the lounge, but they're not exactly of outstanding quality. Besides, the chocomel never returned. I still miss the old individually packed bars of Gouda cheese, and I haven't seen popcorn in the lounge in a while either. Perhaps it's one of those rotating time-of-the-day snacks though.

I especially miss the old RoyalWing lounge in the D pier, which was ideal for the London flights. Nowadays of course I'm usually on VLM or BA, but still.

Priority boarding has deteriorated. Although it never did work on short haul, in the olden days they'd at least make an effort on long haul. Remeber the colored cards and the lights? They still make the announcement that they'll start boarding with business class, but not even a token effort is made to enforce it.

the story of our life ;-)

In most cases that is true.

What my point was that airlines either do not have fuel surcharges (either on revenue/award tickets), or they do have them, and will charge on both revenue and award tickets.

Actually, I've just re-read what I put in my post, and what I meant to say was redemption tickets and not revenue tickets.