Ditto

This will be my firs trip report, so please bear with me

The reason I decided to write a trip report is mostly because of my return leg which involves a flight with Kulula, and a visit to SLOW lounges in both CPT and JNB, all on which I couldn't find much details in FT or otherwise, so I thought it would be a good idea to write a TR about.

Ditto

We were flying with KLM directly to CPT, the daily KL597 flight leaves at 10:00AM, and as such we left our house at about 8:00 for the short taxi ride to Schiphol.

After arriving at Schiphol we checked in at the SkyPriority counters, we were redirected to use the "Family Checkin" lane which is in row 9, or as it felt to us "the backside" of the normal checkin counters.

Shortly after, we continued upstairs to the security filter where there were probably about 20PAX before us in the queue, given that 4 lanes were used for priority PAX, and each can serve 3 people at any given time, this moved rather quickly.

Of course, as per the usual Schiphol security routine (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/klm-f...ional-ams.html), some of our trays had to go to a secondary check, which delayed the process of clearing security by several minutes, after which we proceeded to immigration where there was no queue, and swiftly on the the Crown Lounge

The non-Schengen Crown Lounge seems to be very busy in the morning rush hour, and there was an actual queue to enter the lounge, it seems that KLM are busy with extending it (actually, it looked to me like the extension part is already done yet it was closed), there were almost no seats available, and we could only find 2 seats together at the back, near the smoking room.

The food is really nothing to write home about (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/klm-f...-catering.html), and as there was also a long queue to get food, we decided to skip it and instead opted to grab something on our way to the gate.

We arrived to our gate about 5 minutes after the official boarding time, at which point they have seem to completed boarding SkyPriority passengers and were already boarding all other passengers, so we swiftly went along the empty SkyPriority lane and boarded the aircraft.

Ditto

Flight number: KL597
Aircraft: B777-200, PH-BQF
Class: Economy
Seat: 17J "preferred" (Along with Ms. Ditto at 17K)

For me this was the first long-haul flight I've taken on KL metal, despite being based in AMS and flying long-haul several times a year, I somehow managed to avoid KL metal while doing so.

The seats are 10 abreast, which makes them pretty narrow, the leg room was fine for me (I am about 1.73), and with no "barrier" between the window and middle seat, it feels almost like unlimited space when travelling with a partner.

The seat almost doesn't recline, which means you get to keep your personal space even if the person in front of you fully reclines, the seat itself was surprisingly comfortable.

The IFE was excellent for my taste, very responsive touch screen with good quality, a long list of movies to choose from and as such the 11 hours day flight passed pretty quick.
All economy seats seem to have a USB port as well as a normal power plug which is a big plus, also the IFE uses a normal headphone jack rather than the double one still used in some airplanes/airlines

At the beginning of the flight and immediately as the "fasten seatbelt" sign was off, the purser offered PAX to "upgrade" to an available economy comfort seat for 180€ or 25000 Miles, nobody seemed to have taken the offer

Shortly after departure we received a hot towel, followed by some BBQ flavoured almonds and drinks, about an hour later Lunch was served with a choice between Chicken and Vegetarian pasta, I went for the Chicken which came with Mash and Mustard sauce, along side it came a small salad, a fresh role, some butter & cheese and a tasty dessert, for an economy class meal this was more than ok, together with the food another round of drinks was served.

Few hours later the FAs served us with a "snack", we went for the ice cream which was ok.
About 2 hours before landing, a second "meal" was served, this included a hot pizza-like pastry and a salad.

Through out the flight the FAs were going through the cabin offering PAX some drinks and generally kept the feeling that they are accessible and available to help with anything.

I would rate this flight:
Comfort: 8/10
Cleanliness: 10/10
Staff: 9/10
Food: 7/10

When I Travel The World

Thanks for the write up. Do you have any pictures ?

Ditto

I only decided to write a TR after taking the outbound flight, pictures will follow for the return flight(s) and lounge(s)

roadwarrier

I never liked the daylight flights to South Africa, so interesting to see your perspective. Also, the SLOW lounges I enjoy - have had some good service, bu they can get very cramped at rush hour. Also, see the "loo with a view" at the SLOW lounge in Cape Town.

Ditto

In comparison in July I had a day flight BKK-CDG with AF in business class, this was on one of their COI configured 772 with a very old IFE, so while the seat was much more comfortable, I got bored about half way through.
I was pleasantly surprised from the experience

SLOW lounges and "loo with a view" will come next, I was hoping to write up this part last night but didn't get the chance

Ditto

Upon arrival to CPT we circled around (and PAX who were seated on the other side could enjoy the nice views of table mountain and Capetown )


Immigration was very quick, it seems that there were no flights that landed before us so no queue whatsoever, upon arrival to the luggage belt 3 which had the sign of our flight we were sent by an airport employee to wait at luggage belt 4 since this is where our baggage will arrive, and sure thing not even 5 minutes later baggage started showing up on baggage belt 4, only in Africa...

We passed through customs where we were stopped to be asked if we brought any food to the country, and any cigarettes (who in their right mind would "import" cigarettes from the EU to ZA? )

As we had a car rental we had to go through the annoying tunnel to get to the car rental agencies area, unfortunately none of the Courtesy golf carts were anywhere to be seen.

In my opinion this underpass is the most annoying thing about the airport, sure there are the courtesy golf carts but could they have not designed it better and allow PAX to get to the parking and car rental areas without having to go down and up?

Ditto

My return flights (which is the reason for which I decided to take the time and write a TR) took a total of 20hrs on 3 legs:
MN130 (Marketed as AF6647) from CPT to JNB, taking off at 1335, booked in J on a Y only aircraft
AF995 from JNB to CDG, taking off at 19:50 in J
AF1240 from CDG to AMS, taking off at 07:10 and arriving to AMS at 0835 in J

The main reasons I took such a long route were that I had to be in AMS before 10AM, so that ruled out the direct KL flight back from CPT, as well as this will allow me to try a new airline (MN), try 2 new lounges and fly on the top deck of the A380, need I say more?

As the first segment of my flight is operated by MN, they are the carrier I would have to OLCI with, as their website only takes PNR for OLCI, I had to contact them in advance to get it, since all I had at the time of booking was the AF PNR.

At T-24, OLCI was open, and I tried to checkin using my mobile phone, the process itself was pretty smooth, I was initially allocated seat 25E but was able to easily swap it to 7D, quite a lot of the seats were not available any more which makes me thinks that many PAX chose to book a paid seat in advance.

After checking in, I noticed that I was checked in for CPT-JNB and JNB-CDG only, and have only received my boarding pass for the CPT-JNB leg...
As it was also T-30 from my JNB-CDG flight, I decided to give the AF app a try, and voila, I was able to check in (again) to my JNB-CDG leg, and also for the CDG-AMS leg and get a boarding pass for both flights in the app.

As I was checking in for the CDG-AMS leg, I noticed something peculiar, as there were a lot of J pax, they have extended the curtain to the maximum size of 10 rows, and was charing J pax to seat in an exit row seat... what's next AF? charging extra for bulkhead seats in row 1?

Ditto

On the day of my flight I arrived at CPT airport ~2hrs before my flight, the Kulula check-in/bag drop counters had no PAX waiting at all, so the entire process didn't take more than 5 minutes.

I was asked whether I want my luggage tagged all the way to AMS to which I replied yes, however the agent was only able to print me the boarding pass for JNB-CPT and suggested I pick up the other boarding pass in JNB, as I had 4 hours in JNB as well as had them in my AF app, I was perfectly fine with that.

A short walk to security for the domestic part, no queue there either so about 5 minutes later I was done with that as well, getting to the SLOW lounge from there was again a short walk, to get to the lounge you can either take the elevator or the stairs, when I was there one elevator was closed for maintenance so I took the stairs, a word of caution - it is quite a lot of stairs, the terminal is on the 2nd and the lounge is on the 4th floor, but walking up the stairs feels like much more than that.

Entrance to the SLOW lounge:





I was not sure what I need to present to the lounge dragon to get access, so I started with my MN boarding pass, then she asked for my Flying Blue card and then somehow she also knew I was flying JNB-CDG in J and immediately allowed me in.

The lounge itself is very specious and have a very nice view on the runway, the lounge has two floors, and while the first floor was very busy, the second one was almost empty.

A view of the first floor:






A small part of the second floor:


The second floor has another larger hall which I don't have photos of, both floors have a food buffet and a bar where you can get coffee and alcoholic drinks.

The food selection was excellent, a large variety of soft drinks and local beers were available next to the buffet, and warm drinks and other types of alcohol available from the bar.

Some pictures of the buffet on the first floor:









The view from the big windows:











And the famous "Loo with a view" everyone seems to be talking about





A big disappointment about the lounge was the internet, it was simply impossible to do anything, I tried doing a speed test and got horrible results, so if you plan on getting any work done - forget about it, I ended up making a hotspot from my phone and using what I had left on my pre-paid sim card.

Speedtest results:


Boarding should have started at 13:05 at gate A10, which is a few minutes walk from the lounge, so at about that time I decided to leave the lounge and head towards the gate, upon arrival at the gate, boarding has not yet started and there was already a long queue of PAX standing and waiting.

Gate A10:




Our aircraft, B737-800, ZS-ZWF:




Boarding slowly started at about 13:20, while boarding I could spot the KQ E190 running their relatively new NBO-CPT route, I will get to fly that later this year ^ ^




As pretty common on those domestic flights, boarding takes place from both doors, PAX on the last rows have to do gown the stairs from the jetway and up the rear stairs



I arrived to my seat 7D, the person in 7E was already seated, with no one at 7F for the time being.
Leg room was quite ok, more than what I expected from a LCC:




The cabin design was different than what I am used to, the overhead bins were similar to that of wide-body aircraft and not what you'd expect in a narrow-body one:





I don't know what is the idea behind it, and whether it means they can hold more bags or not, but it did give a more spacious feeling, the aircraft also had some nice ceiling lights which had a nice touch




Once boarding was completed, and after a short announcement about the Galaxy Note 7, doors were closed and we were on our way.
The "atmosphere" in the cabin was very positive, there were quite a lot of kids but not too much noise, the cabin attendants paid extra attention to them which was a nice touch.

Food was BOB, as I just had some food in the lounge I didn't buy anything, I bought a bottle of water in the terminal for about R10, where as on the aircraft it was R15, prices of food seemed reasonable to me, there was no IFE whatsoever so I spent my time filling up People magazine puzzle book, too bad they only come out once a month

We were a bit delayed on takeoff, however with an actual flight time of 1h39 we arrived to JNB just on time

offerendum

The food selection looks indeed excellent^

Fredrik74

SLOW is impressive. At least to someone like me who is used to what SAS offers.

Ditto

Upon our timely arrival I followed the "flight connections" sign which I always find funny as it simply takes you out land-side without going through the luggage reclaim area

The weather in JNB was very hot, about 31-32C, which was about 10C more than the weather in CPT, and the aircon at the airport is not very good, at some spots it was actually nice and cold while others it felt like there is no aircon at all.

As one walks out to land-side area, he immediately gets to the food area, where one of the options is my favourite South African "fast food" chain - Nandos



As it has now been several hours since I had "breakfast" at the CPT Slow lounge, and given that I had 4 hours anyway, I decided to stop for a quick Mild chicken & Rice with veg, which was delicious as always.

Next stop, after getting some food, was the brewery next door... what a better place to have a beer at an airport?



They have about 5 or 6 draught beers, I decided to go for the IPA which ended up being a good choice



After spending about 1 hour between Nandos & Airport Craft Brewers I decided it is time to head towards terminal A and get my boarding pass for the next flight, there seemed to only be one kiosk for self printing of a boarding pass, so I headed towards the AF checkin counters.
The entire checkin area in terminal A in JNB is very old and tired, and the aircon was a no go so it was very warm, as I was waiting in the SkyPriority queue for the family that was before me, I was called to approach the La Premiere desk which was empty, where I had to repeat myself twice that my bag is already en-route from CPT (once to the question of "Do you need to check in a bag?" followed by a "So you need to check in a bag?"

After checkin, I headed to pass security and immigration, given the reports in the Africa forum biometrics capture at immigration - post to record progress of roll-out I expected a nightmare, but luckily this was not the case.
At the entrance to the security, signs for both sides showed <1 minute wait time, while this was incorrect, I think I waited about 10 minutes for security and about 10 more for immigration, the TV screens explained about the biometric capture process and that it takes about 2 minutes per person, and asked for people to have patience, luckily it seems that they were not capturing any biometrics when I was there so the queue was much quicker

From there, I proceeded to the 2nd lounge for this trip, the SLOW lounge in JNB


The SLOW lounge in JNB has 2 seating areas, when you enter you can either go left or right, I decided to go left.
Each of the sides has a pretty big seating area which various types of chairs/tables etc.






When I entered the lounge it was a bit crowded, given that AF alone has 50+ pax in J on the A380, and probably many STE+, as the time moved on and it was time to board, the lounge became very empty and quite.

Same as in CPT, the food selection here was also excellent, and included as well a big selection of soft drinks, warm drinks and alcohol, there were also big (I think 1 or 1.5 litre) bottles of water and it seemed to be very common for PAX to take one with them as they left the lounge
















An interesting concept they had was a "wine bar" where one could pour their own wine out of a nice selection of wines:






The boarding for our AF995 flight started at 18:55 (for a 19:50 take off), so I figured 19:00 is probably a good time to go to the gate(s)

The walk to the gate takes about 8-10 minutes, and by the time I arrived to the gate area it seemed to be pretty abandoned, as if most pax have already boarded, as the SkyPriority document security check was occupied, I went through the normal one, just to have my documents checked again at the actual gate.



In JNB the A380 boarding takes place from 2 separate gates that have their jetways right next to each other, I don't know if for with smaller aircraft those 2 gates can be used to board separate aircrafts, nonetheless it was an interesting experience, after entering the gate and walking down, there is a place where both jetways meet each other and you are redirected to the one you need to use, either the lower deck or the upper deck

BNEFlyer

The Kulula plane you were on is a BSI (Boeing Sky Interior) 738. They have the recessed bins (similar to the 77W) and a new design ceiling with standard blue mood lighting (though VA for example has purple).

Ditto

Ahh, thanks for the extra info It was the first time for me in one of those.