I agree John. Last year, they ran only 737 8-900’s. Then they started to introduce the Embraer 190’s, but now some of these are being replaced by Fokker 70’s. MY experience last week was these were cramped and unpleasant, and a totally different experience to the 737 or Embraer, my flight being a change of aircraft from the 738. This was widely felt across the cabin as i could hear, plus you are bussed out at Schiphol. 5 Fokker 70’s on one weekday at one time, but it differs every day! This is not the standard for a prime European route travellers expect.
The glut of flights around the 4-7pm time is rather bizarre and i agree, they are merely holding the slots. I am looking very carefully at the aircraft i book onto now. What i can tell you as a shareholder, is that their % loads on the European network, are increased by offering smaller aircraft and bump up the statistics and traffic load for that month. This is reflected in The Shareholders information, and monthly and quarterly load stats. If this is more capacity controlled, the share price rises, and the efficiency appears to improve.
These LHR flights now are pretty full every day now as a result of this change.
