KLM longhaul: Meh
Aug 22, 2019, 12:35 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 326
KLM longhaul: Meh
I looked forward to a nice flight but was somewhat disappointed with this, hence sharing my thoughts.
I was rebooked from Emirates on KLM so my routing was MAN-AMS-GIG. This would be my first time flying KLM longhaul and I saw it as an opportunity. It is not an airline I would choose myself (I like BA), I thought to make the best of it.
MAN-AMS and layover in Schiphol
MAN-AMS on a 737 was uneventful, we got a sandwich, water, coffee, and a (sadly too small) stroopwafel. Crew was friendly and being Belgian, it is nice to hear crew speaking in Dutch. We landed in Schiphol and the layover was very pleasant. The layover was 5 hours so I explored the airport. There is a small museum if you want to do some culture, ample seating and the whole airport is well-designed so it does not feel crowded.
AMS-GIG
Seat
This was on the newly delivered 787. The plane looked new and I liked the blue colourscheme. It is different from BA's blue, it looks brighter and somewhat more cheerful. I was seated in 25G, an aisle seat in the last row before the toilets. Although Seatguru calls it a disadvantage, there weren't too many people standing next to me so I did not have a big problem.
IFE
The screen is almost flush with the rest of the seat, you cannot move it like on Emirates but it looked actually better. The black screen contrasted nicely with white seatback. Good design I'd say. There was no remote, only touchscreen but probably the best one I ever used. Most IFE touchscreens are slow, this one worked flawlessly.
Not too satisfied with the content, I think there was not a lot worth watching but then I am not a real film aficionado. But nice to see films with subtitles in Dutch.
Unfortunately, headphones were only distributed half an hour after takeoff.
Food and beverage
This was quite underwhelming. No drinks service prior to lunch (the flight left at 12.45 AMS time). Lunch was only served after 1,5 hour, pretty late I thought. Lunch was ok, some kid of chicken in barbecue sauce, rice, and salad. Drinks were soft drinks, wine or beer. After the meal, coffee was served, but again with a big interval between lunch and coffee. Softdrinks were served in a weird way: they had standard 33cl cans but opened them and poured half of it in a cup, the other half was for another customer. Not sure why they do it like that, either use bottles, or use small-size cans. It looked a bit like penny-pinching to be honest. I tried the wine (white with the lunch, red with he snack) and it was really bad wine, even for economy.
Mid-flight, they served a snackbox, containing something that was supposed to be a pizza, a mousse-like thing and a cookie. Drinks were again only soft drinks, wine, and beer. This is where things became a bit awry but I'll get to that in a separate section.
One hour before the end of the flight, a msall bag of crisps was handed out and again a cup of water.
I checked out the galley but that was absolutely abismal. There was a bottle of water (no cap), some opened cans so I had to combine two half cans to get a decent-sized drink. f course, those cans had been open for a while I experienced as there was no fizz anymore. Snacks were bags of pretzels (again small). Alcohol was nowhere to be found.
Amenity kit
No amenity kit, not even when I asked it. Usually they have some laying around but no luck. I just wanted to brush my teeth.
Crew
The crew treated me like a child I felt. It's difficult to write down a voice but the way they talked to me showed some kind of we-know-better-than-you. When I asked for a headphone, she said in a childish voice: "Look there, look there, what's coming there!". When I asked about the amenity kit the same thing, the crew was chatting in the galley and only after almost going to stand in front of one of them did I get attention. I don't like to ring the crew with the call button but I should have simply done that.
The worst thing happened however with the man sitting in 25E. During the midflight snack he had taken a bottle of wine from the trolley and when the hostess discovered it, she became very mad and made quite the scene: "This is stealing", "Get out of your seat so I can inspect if you have other bottles hidden". However, when the hostess who was serving me heard what happened she spoke to the man "How sad of you that you need this". I felt that this was taking an issue way too far. Obviously, the man did something wring but that could have been handled with less theatre and the crew member serving me should not have made that comment.
The overall crew behaviour (slow serving, no interest in passengers, and certainly the wine bottle episode) was most off-putting in this flight.
Conclusion
KLM is not an airline I would choose instantly but after being rebooked I somewhat looked forward to it, maybe due to that language connection. But the food and drink serving, and certainly the crew's behaviour made the flight not fun. So no KLM for me in the near future.
I was rebooked from Emirates on KLM so my routing was MAN-AMS-GIG. This would be my first time flying KLM longhaul and I saw it as an opportunity. It is not an airline I would choose myself (I like BA), I thought to make the best of it.
MAN-AMS and layover in Schiphol
MAN-AMS on a 737 was uneventful, we got a sandwich, water, coffee, and a (sadly too small) stroopwafel. Crew was friendly and being Belgian, it is nice to hear crew speaking in Dutch. We landed in Schiphol and the layover was very pleasant. The layover was 5 hours so I explored the airport. There is a small museum if you want to do some culture, ample seating and the whole airport is well-designed so it does not feel crowded.
AMS-GIG
Seat
This was on the newly delivered 787. The plane looked new and I liked the blue colourscheme. It is different from BA's blue, it looks brighter and somewhat more cheerful. I was seated in 25G, an aisle seat in the last row before the toilets. Although Seatguru calls it a disadvantage, there weren't too many people standing next to me so I did not have a big problem.
IFE
The screen is almost flush with the rest of the seat, you cannot move it like on Emirates but it looked actually better. The black screen contrasted nicely with white seatback. Good design I'd say. There was no remote, only touchscreen but probably the best one I ever used. Most IFE touchscreens are slow, this one worked flawlessly.
Not too satisfied with the content, I think there was not a lot worth watching but then I am not a real film aficionado. But nice to see films with subtitles in Dutch.
Unfortunately, headphones were only distributed half an hour after takeoff.
Food and beverage
This was quite underwhelming. No drinks service prior to lunch (the flight left at 12.45 AMS time). Lunch was only served after 1,5 hour, pretty late I thought. Lunch was ok, some kid of chicken in barbecue sauce, rice, and salad. Drinks were soft drinks, wine or beer. After the meal, coffee was served, but again with a big interval between lunch and coffee. Softdrinks were served in a weird way: they had standard 33cl cans but opened them and poured half of it in a cup, the other half was for another customer. Not sure why they do it like that, either use bottles, or use small-size cans. It looked a bit like penny-pinching to be honest. I tried the wine (white with the lunch, red with he snack) and it was really bad wine, even for economy.
Mid-flight, they served a snackbox, containing something that was supposed to be a pizza, a mousse-like thing and a cookie. Drinks were again only soft drinks, wine, and beer. This is where things became a bit awry but I'll get to that in a separate section.
One hour before the end of the flight, a msall bag of crisps was handed out and again a cup of water.
I checked out the galley but that was absolutely abismal. There was a bottle of water (no cap), some opened cans so I had to combine two half cans to get a decent-sized drink. f course, those cans had been open for a while I experienced as there was no fizz anymore. Snacks were bags of pretzels (again small). Alcohol was nowhere to be found.
Amenity kit
No amenity kit, not even when I asked it. Usually they have some laying around but no luck. I just wanted to brush my teeth.
Crew
The crew treated me like a child I felt. It's difficult to write down a voice but the way they talked to me showed some kind of we-know-better-than-you. When I asked for a headphone, she said in a childish voice: "Look there, look there, what's coming there!". When I asked about the amenity kit the same thing, the crew was chatting in the galley and only after almost going to stand in front of one of them did I get attention. I don't like to ring the crew with the call button but I should have simply done that.
The worst thing happened however with the man sitting in 25E. During the midflight snack he had taken a bottle of wine from the trolley and when the hostess discovered it, she became very mad and made quite the scene: "This is stealing", "Get out of your seat so I can inspect if you have other bottles hidden". However, when the hostess who was serving me heard what happened she spoke to the man "How sad of you that you need this". I felt that this was taking an issue way too far. Obviously, the man did something wring but that could have been handled with less theatre and the crew member serving me should not have made that comment.
The overall crew behaviour (slow serving, no interest in passengers, and certainly the wine bottle episode) was most off-putting in this flight.
Conclusion
KLM is not an airline I would choose instantly but after being rebooked I somewhat looked forward to it, maybe due to that language connection. But the food and drink serving, and certainly the crew's behaviour made the flight not fun. So no KLM for me in the near future.
