An odd GVA-AMS-OTP trip (KL and RO)
Dec 19, 2012, 5:43 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: MEL
Programs: DL, QF, QR Gold, MR Lifetime Gold
Posts: 7,003
An odd GVA-AMS-OTP trip (KL and RO)
This was a fairly entertaining experience and I'd thought I'd share it.
Let me start by saying that I was disgusted with having to travel on a full Y fare. Even though it was not out of my own pocket, it still bothers me that someone paid an exorbitant amount. I was scheduled to fly later but something came up and I had to change this flight to the next day, when only Y was available.
The change: My original itin was KL to AMS and then KL to OTP, with a nice 7 hour layover. I was going to stroll through the city and go to my favorite cheese shop to get some nice Dutch cheese. That 7 hour layover got changed into a 3.5 hour layover and the second flight was changed from KL to RO (Tarom). The initial departure was around 11 am and that got changed to 7 am, which meant getting up ridiculously early.
Check-in: I could not complete the OLCI; the BP could not be issued so I had to do that at the airport. Since this was a full Y fare and RO has 2x2 seating in C, I figured I'd try to UG with miles. At the desk the TA said it had to be done at the ticket counter and tried to convince me that I should really only do it for the second flight. I said I wanted both legs and he said "but you already have a good seat on the first leg".
I didn't quite get why he was trying to discourage me, but I went to the ticket counter and was told that it couldn't be done because the first leg was J1C0Z0 with no UG space available and that the second leg looked full but that I should ask in AMS.
GVA-AMS: I figured I saved some miles and just went ahead. I boarded and took my aisle seat in EC (got free EC due to the full Y fare). Towards the end of the boarding process this lady spills over me as she put her stuff in the overhead bin. This POS didn't just sit next to me but was constantly in my space (her left elbow was not on the arm rest between our seats, but resting on me). I kept moving to signal to her that I was uncomfortable with her resting her elbow on ME and in a few minutes she got the message. The relatively short flight was uneventful but a landing on the Polderbaan entailed a ~15 minute taxi, which made our arrival late. The giant lady next to me panicked as she had a 1 hour connection and as soon as the plane came to a complete stop tried to climb over me to reach the aisle. I told her to wait and also told her that with the door not being open she couldn't really go anywhere. When she did eventually make it into the aisle she tried to sneak through the people in the aisle waiting to deplane, but it was more of an attempt to bulldoze her way out. She was several people in front of me as she exited but walked so slowly that I passed in the jet bridge.
AMS: I walk to the passport control (going from Schengen to non-Schengen) and there was just a sea of people. There were probably somewhere between 25-30 million people there. Or I don't know... I'm not that good at counting people... could have been closer to 1 billion. I'm pretty sure that those closer to the front of the cue had been standing in that line for weeks. I did an about face and headed to the "arrival hall" (that's AMS-speak; in English we'd say "land side"), then upstairs to the departures level and headed to the D gates on the non-Schengen side. In the passport line there were 5 people in front of me. Even with a quick stop at the Panorama Terrace (which is awesome, by the way!) I'm pretty sure I made the transfer much, much faster this way.
I got a quick bite to eat and then went to the transfer desk to ask about a mileage UG. After the traditional "that is not possible" that one always gets initially, I politely insisted, told her that it was a SkyTeam benefit to be able to UG a full Y fare with miles, made a quick joke, she was smiling and was actually very helpful. Well, she seriously tried but then she almost burst into laughing when she noticed that it was RO. She told me that it was seriously not possible to UG using miles on RO. She showed me a screen with a bunch of rules and indeed RO was excluded from the list of airlines which allowed upgrades. It didn't work with the KL code share flight number either. She encouraged me to write a note/message about it (didn't say to whom though... it's not like there is some SkyTeam authority that I could contact about RO not playing by the SkyTeam rules).
No biggy; I headed to the gate. I noticed that D31 was actually the very last gate on that side of the D gates, so it was really the furthest possible D gate. I didn't mind the walk tho. I got there and noticed no SkyPriority sign. Then the gate lice. Oh, the gate lice! Hardly anyone was sitting; most people were already queuing for boarding, even though it was 20 minutes before it was about to start. At some point later I see the queue actually moving. They had started boarding. A few minutes later the announcement came. I got in line. At some point I was close to the scanner (there were maybe 3-4 people in front of me) when 2 people walked by pretty pissed off and asked why business class pax don't get to board first.
Blue dragon lady: "if you're business class you can come and board now"
Pissed off C-class Pax: "why isn't there a SkyPriority sign and a SkyPriority lane?"
Blue dragon lady: "it's difficult to do at this gate".
BPs are scanned at this point. The pax look baffled, stare at her for a few seconds, then take their BPs and board. I realized that I was equally baffled. "Difficult to do at this gate"?! WHAT?!
As bad as an answer that was, it defies any logic so there is no logical come back for that. It was disturbing but I couldn't help thinking "wow... she's good!".
AMS-OTP: I boarded this ancient 737-300 and the first impression was that it was just ugly. The colors, the seats, the lighting, the frowning FAs... everything was ugly. My exit row seat was pretty uncomfortable but was glad that it had LOTS of legroom. (They must have gotten those seats at a garage sale or picked them up at a dump.) My seat would not stay in the upright position for very long; it kept reclining and I had to re-adjust it during take off and landing.
There was hot food in Y, which I had not encountered in a long time for intra-EU flights. The meal consisted of 4 pieces of boiled chicken breast with lots of garlic powder on them and about a spoonful of rice. The surly FAs had this constant frown on and the best way to describe it is that they looked like they were very, very upset with every single pax. I wasn't necessarily expecting a cheery smiling service, but this was a bit extreme. There was a second drink service after the meal, which was nice. I had my eye shades on and was listening to music when I heard the captain make an announcement about landing. The captain (not a FA!) instructed us to stow our tray tables, put the seat in the upright position and all that. I found it a bit odd but obeyed the instructions without removing my eye shades though. A FA came by and shook my shoulder violently saying "SIR, WE ARE ABOUT TO LAND!". I took my eye shades off and told her that my seat was in the upright position, my electronic devices were off, my tray table was stowed and my carry on luggage was no where in sight. She said "are you ok?". I said yes, and she walked away. Very awkward, but the best part about it was that it meant the flight was almost over.
OTP: 3 luggage belts were available but only 1 was used for several flights. I waited for almost an hour for my priority labeled bag to come out.
Conclusion: It wasn't all bad. No IROPS, no middle seats (I even had an exit row aisle seat with lots of legroom on the RO flight!), no bad transfers (I love AMS; CDG would have likely ruined my day) but it was just an odd trip that I felt I had to share.
With 2013 approaching, I wish you a happy new year and stay away from RO if you can.
Let me start by saying that I was disgusted with having to travel on a full Y fare. Even though it was not out of my own pocket, it still bothers me that someone paid an exorbitant amount. I was scheduled to fly later but something came up and I had to change this flight to the next day, when only Y was available.
The change: My original itin was KL to AMS and then KL to OTP, with a nice 7 hour layover. I was going to stroll through the city and go to my favorite cheese shop to get some nice Dutch cheese. That 7 hour layover got changed into a 3.5 hour layover and the second flight was changed from KL to RO (Tarom). The initial departure was around 11 am and that got changed to 7 am, which meant getting up ridiculously early.
Check-in: I could not complete the OLCI; the BP could not be issued so I had to do that at the airport. Since this was a full Y fare and RO has 2x2 seating in C, I figured I'd try to UG with miles. At the desk the TA said it had to be done at the ticket counter and tried to convince me that I should really only do it for the second flight. I said I wanted both legs and he said "but you already have a good seat on the first leg".
I didn't quite get why he was trying to discourage me, but I went to the ticket counter and was told that it couldn't be done because the first leg was J1C0Z0 with no UG space available and that the second leg looked full but that I should ask in AMS.GVA-AMS: I figured I saved some miles and just went ahead. I boarded and took my aisle seat in EC (got free EC due to the full Y fare). Towards the end of the boarding process this lady spills over me as she put her stuff in the overhead bin. This POS didn't just sit next to me but was constantly in my space (her left elbow was not on the arm rest between our seats, but resting on me). I kept moving to signal to her that I was uncomfortable with her resting her elbow on ME and in a few minutes she got the message. The relatively short flight was uneventful but a landing on the Polderbaan entailed a ~15 minute taxi, which made our arrival late. The giant lady next to me panicked as she had a 1 hour connection and as soon as the plane came to a complete stop tried to climb over me to reach the aisle. I told her to wait and also told her that with the door not being open she couldn't really go anywhere. When she did eventually make it into the aisle she tried to sneak through the people in the aisle waiting to deplane, but it was more of an attempt to bulldoze her way out. She was several people in front of me as she exited but walked so slowly that I passed in the jet bridge.
AMS: I walk to the passport control (going from Schengen to non-Schengen) and there was just a sea of people. There were probably somewhere between 25-30 million people there. Or I don't know... I'm not that good at counting people... could have been closer to 1 billion. I'm pretty sure that those closer to the front of the cue had been standing in that line for weeks. I did an about face and headed to the "arrival hall" (that's AMS-speak; in English we'd say "land side"), then upstairs to the departures level and headed to the D gates on the non-Schengen side. In the passport line there were 5 people in front of me. Even with a quick stop at the Panorama Terrace (which is awesome, by the way!) I'm pretty sure I made the transfer much, much faster this way.
I got a quick bite to eat and then went to the transfer desk to ask about a mileage UG. After the traditional "that is not possible" that one always gets initially, I politely insisted, told her that it was a SkyTeam benefit to be able to UG a full Y fare with miles, made a quick joke, she was smiling and was actually very helpful. Well, she seriously tried but then she almost burst into laughing when she noticed that it was RO. She told me that it was seriously not possible to UG using miles on RO. She showed me a screen with a bunch of rules and indeed RO was excluded from the list of airlines which allowed upgrades. It didn't work with the KL code share flight number either. She encouraged me to write a note/message about it (didn't say to whom though... it's not like there is some SkyTeam authority that I could contact about RO not playing by the SkyTeam rules).
No biggy; I headed to the gate. I noticed that D31 was actually the very last gate on that side of the D gates, so it was really the furthest possible D gate. I didn't mind the walk tho. I got there and noticed no SkyPriority sign. Then the gate lice. Oh, the gate lice! Hardly anyone was sitting; most people were already queuing for boarding, even though it was 20 minutes before it was about to start. At some point later I see the queue actually moving. They had started boarding. A few minutes later the announcement came. I got in line. At some point I was close to the scanner (there were maybe 3-4 people in front of me) when 2 people walked by pretty pissed off and asked why business class pax don't get to board first.
Blue dragon lady: "if you're business class you can come and board now"
Pissed off C-class Pax: "why isn't there a SkyPriority sign and a SkyPriority lane?"
Blue dragon lady: "it's difficult to do at this gate".
BPs are scanned at this point. The pax look baffled, stare at her for a few seconds, then take their BPs and board. I realized that I was equally baffled. "Difficult to do at this gate"?! WHAT?!
As bad as an answer that was, it defies any logic so there is no logical come back for that. It was disturbing but I couldn't help thinking "wow... she's good!".AMS-OTP: I boarded this ancient 737-300 and the first impression was that it was just ugly. The colors, the seats, the lighting, the frowning FAs... everything was ugly. My exit row seat was pretty uncomfortable but was glad that it had LOTS of legroom. (They must have gotten those seats at a garage sale or picked them up at a dump.) My seat would not stay in the upright position for very long; it kept reclining and I had to re-adjust it during take off and landing.
There was hot food in Y, which I had not encountered in a long time for intra-EU flights. The meal consisted of 4 pieces of boiled chicken breast with lots of garlic powder on them and about a spoonful of rice. The surly FAs had this constant frown on and the best way to describe it is that they looked like they were very, very upset with every single pax. I wasn't necessarily expecting a cheery smiling service, but this was a bit extreme. There was a second drink service after the meal, which was nice. I had my eye shades on and was listening to music when I heard the captain make an announcement about landing. The captain (not a FA!) instructed us to stow our tray tables, put the seat in the upright position and all that. I found it a bit odd but obeyed the instructions without removing my eye shades though. A FA came by and shook my shoulder violently saying "SIR, WE ARE ABOUT TO LAND!". I took my eye shades off and told her that my seat was in the upright position, my electronic devices were off, my tray table was stowed and my carry on luggage was no where in sight. She said "are you ok?". I said yes, and she walked away. Very awkward, but the best part about it was that it meant the flight was almost over.
OTP: 3 luggage belts were available but only 1 was used for several flights. I waited for almost an hour for my priority labeled bag to come out.
Conclusion: It wasn't all bad. No IROPS, no middle seats (I even had an exit row aisle seat with lots of legroom on the RO flight!), no bad transfers (I love AMS; CDG would have likely ruined my day) but it was just an odd trip that I felt I had to share.
With 2013 approaching, I wish you a happy new year and stay away from RO if you can.
Dec 19, 2012, 8:54 am
#2
Join Date: Feb 2012
Programs: TK M&S, BAEC, EK
Posts: 257
Thank you for sharing this. It-s always interesting to read a report in which human foibles take centre stage and not a description of sophisticated machinery or sumptuous pictures of haute cuisine airline style.
Dec 20, 2012, 2:35 am
#4
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: BRS
Posts: 336
+1, although I know myself to be very guilty of the latter.