[Anonymous]

[Vertrek]

LHR-AMS KL1022

— CHECK IN —

I did so from my iPhone around 30 hours before my flight and get an offer for upgrade to J for GBP65. Opted the option and opted seat 3F for my LHR-AMS flight. Arrived in T4 1 hour before my flight to drop my bag before heading towards the priority line for security check which took about 20 minutes to complete.

Due to time constraint, I was not able to visit the SkyTeam Lounge in T4 but in stead go to my gate and board straight away.

— BOARDING —

was late and was the last one on the Q. but 2 separate lines were there to divide Economy and Business, Elite and Elite + member.

Once onboard was greeted by the Captain and a Steward on the entrance and a stewardess on the Business class Cabin.

— ONBOARD —

The business class in 737-900 consists of 4 rows with standard European Seating arrangement where the middle seat is reserved.
the first row only consist D-E-F since the A-B-C is converted into a cupboard to put the coats and other stuff.

The seat was not leather but cloth and I found it to be much better than leather. lots of leg rooms and nothing to complaint about the width. The cabin it self was KLM Blue in colour with the KLM words and Logo present in front of the cabin.

When seated, the smiley and cheerful stewardess straight away offered to hang my coat and asked me if I want to read any English or Dutch newspaper, which I opted not to.

As always, before we take off, there was about 35 minutes congestion in LHR and we took off about 45 minutes from the scheduled departure .

During the congestion, the pilot was honest and kept us informed about the situation and told us his plan for the flight as well as expected arrival time which was gonna be 10 minutes pass the scheduled arrival time.

The business class was about 80% full.

— THE FLIGHT —

Once airborne, the dividing curtain was closed and the service begins with dinner.

The dinner come in a small tray that consist of Marcel Wander KLM Tableware.

The starter: “Vegetable salad with salmon and cream of garden”

The Meal: “Mixed salad with honeyed goat cheese, cherry tomato, cucumber, black olives and red onions, served with balsamic dressing”

The Dessert: “Dark Chocolate mousse with mint chocolate ganache”

the above menu was printed in KLM Europe Business Class Menu Card, which is now my bookmark.

Warm breads are offered throughout the meal.

The meal was really nice and smartly presented, with the balsamic dressing as well as butter are put in a “red tiled” printed box.

Once all 9 passengers got their meal, the hot drinks was served with regular choice of coffee or tea, again with Marcel Wander KLM Stirrer and Mug.

— ARRIVAL —

10 minutes late, usual arrival good bye with the pilot present and my bag was there on the belt before me.

—————–

AMS – LHR KL1033

— CHECK IN —

Mobile check-in, but no offer.
seated in 27F before going to the service desk to change my flight from LHR-SVO in June. Flight will be with Alitalia and the KLM agent happily change it for me with no cost as it will be in J.

Asked to pay for an upgrade, but was too expensive (EUR 300+) and opted not to, before she blocked 27E to make sure that no one sitting beside me. Nice of her, if you read this, Dank U wel once again!

Gate was at D43, and unlike Haethrow, Schipol has security X-Ray, 2 for every “big” gates like in SIN (SIN use Schipol blue print) which makes everything smoother!

— Boarding —

Commenced with priority given for Business, Elite and Elite+ as well as those travelling with children. Greeted by the pilot and a Steward, and in no time, make my way to my seat before a stewardess cheerfully again saying hi and how are you.

— ONBOARD —

Economy class, nothing much to talk about, better cushion than BA, since i prefer cloth seat to leather, leg room is about the same but better ambiance, with yellow lighting and KLM Blue interior.

We had 2 chinese families travelling from Asia with children and the crews were very accommodating to actually speak with them in English and Chinese, yes! 2 Dutch crews with blonde hair spoke a little bit of Chinese.

— FLIGHT —

One thing I can be sure of, KLM European Economy flight is better than BA in term of offering. In 45 minutes flight, i have the same service as BA 2 hours flight to Berlin, in fact, KLM offer hot drinks in economy and gave out small cans of fizzy drinks with a cup, in stead of pouring it to a cup from a bigger can, like BA.

All crew served with genuine cheery smiles, something that BA doesn’t have!

— ARRIVAL —

Same ritual with Pilot saying “good bye and thank you” and bag was waiting when I am there.

— VERDICT —

I really don’t know about the fuss of BA in this forum as I personally think KLM is above them. The crew carry a relaxed attitude and very welcoming, the food in J, both presentation and taste are better and service offering in Economy is also more generous.

in comparison to BA (as most of poster here seems to only fly with them) I noticed that BA crew carry certain attitude of trying to be professional and holding themselves all together, there is no degree of relaxation and as much as I smiled during flight (as I usually always in a good mood), they don’t really smile back.

KLM, on the other side, is the other way round, the degree of professionalism and relaxation is balanced, making them less uptight and more cheerful. Even when one of the stewardess asked me to took off my earphones, she said it with a smile, cheerful (in a sense that she feels bad to asked me to do so) and friendly manner, unlike BA “please take off your earphones” manner.

So nothing else I can say beside, KLM is better than BA. The only 2 things BA have that KLM don’t are the generous Executive Club and the flat bed for long haul.

If any of KLM/AF worker present here, please revised your FlyingBlue conditions, especially for millage accrual.

Have a good flight everyone!

[BusinessTraveller]

Thank you for your post Vertrek.

Just to let you know you can also post flight reviews on our sister website seatplans.com.

By posting you would also enter yourself into the monthly competition for the best review, with great prizes including hotel stays.

To post your flight review on seatplans visit:

http://www.seatplans.com/add-user-review

[Vertrek]

thanks BT,

I am still new to this website. 🙂
Will do so.

Regards,
V

[rferguson]

Sounds good! Great deal you got for upgrading on the outbound. Shame you didnt have time to check out the lounge.

Just one small point. Hot drinks are served on all BA flights in economy. Also the soft drinks are served in individual small cans, not poured from larger ones.

As for the crew…..yes, KL crew are a great bunch. I’ve never flown KL but have heard great things about them. Most of my contact with KL crew have been downroute in hotels where we (BA crew) share with the KL crews. And I must say they seem to be the friendliest most natural people.

I think they are mainly very happy in their jobs. They aren’t paid the highest but they work among the lowest number of hours of the european airlines: averages out 600 flying hours p.a.

[Vertrek]

rferguson,

It wasn’t served on my flight to Berlin and my coke was poured to a cup instead of getting the can. 🙂 Thanks for the input thou!

Is it true that BA crew has to act in certain way or carry a formal attitude towards serving? Cos I got the feeling that you guys need to do that. Which is very British considering Britain is a service oriented country, I got to say costumer service in the UK top every other EU nations.

However, it is nicer when everyone is relaxed when it comes to flight as we are all sharing the same space for the whole duration of the flight and the atmosphere will be more relax as well when the one in charge are relax, well at least for me. 🙂

Safe flight.

[rferguson]

Hmmmm. Well one of our corporate core ‘values’ at BA is ‘britishness’ which I guess is a very broad value and can be interpreted differently by many of the 13,000-odd cabin crew that we have at BA. As well as taking into account that probably 30% or thereabouts aren’t british anyway.

Unfortunately with such numbers of employees it can often be hit and miss as to the attitude of the crew member you encounter. We are trained to be friendly, engage in conversation etc. But also to read the signs and recognise those passengers that just want to be left alone. Some people are better at their jobs than others.

Sometimes I despair of my colleagues attitude in the cabin. Other times I am bowled over at the professionalism and enthusiasm of an employee that has been doing this job for 30-odd years. I myself, travelling on staff travel (most often in Club) have experienced both ends of the scale in terms of the crew working in my section and it is amazing the difference that it makes in a flight.

But KL definitely does something right. Perhaps they have a better history of harmonious industrial relations than we have at BA which literally can affect the moral barometer immensely. Perhaps they have more in-depth personality testing at recruitment stage than BA. But whatever they are doing, it’s working!

[RichHI1]

There are two issues for me here. One is the training and quality of the flight crews (cabin and FD) and the other is the culture of the country.

The NEtherlands is a more egalitarian nation than the UK and at the same time much more inclined to say things as thye see them.

THerefore whilst there are things that can be done to raise standards on baord there will always be a difference down to national values and culture. It is for this reason that many like to fly their own flag carrier. Others enjoy the stimulation of a different culture.

[BA319131]

I’ve never had my drink served from a larger bottle on BA unless it was still water, everything else is in a can.

And BA do serve hot drinks………

[Henkel.Trocken]

After a couple of fairly awful LHR-AMS flights on BA I decided a few months back to give KLM a try. It’s a monthly journey in C.

I’ve been very pleased. The Skyteam lounge in T4 is pleasant, flights are regular and so far no delays other than they usual LHR problems, service on board has been with a genuine smile, the food offerings have been very good for the length of journey and appropriate to the time of day.

Certainly IME the KLM shorthaul experience is much better and more consistent than the BA one.

[pinstripes&airmiles]

Nice to see a pro-KLM comment on here (normally they seem to get quite a bashing, especially the crew). I use them quite a lot for Intra-European travel, long-haul however I find their products lag behind the likes of Virgin, BA, Lufthansa, Swiss and even their stablemate Air France (but then again KLM’s strength is their network and less so their on-board product).

Some observations on your post:
– I agree that European Business Class is vastly improved since the upgrade from Europe Select. Shame that the regional jet offering doesn’t include a guaranteed seat free next to you (like Lufthansa)
– Marcel Wanders Catering product is significantly improved also, versus what was offered before
– I don’t find the quality of the crew as consistent as yourself, last week for example, outstanding crew on the way out (best service I’ve had this year), crew on the way home looked like they didn’t want to be there, but I find BA similarly in-consistent (and its the crew that can make or break my impression of an airline)
– Don’t know if something’s changed since I last ordered a soft drink in economy on BA, but I don’t remember drinks being part-poured from cans, (always been served a whole miniature can) and there’s always hot drinks on offer (except during turbulence) – sounds like you could have had an unfortunately bad BA experience.
– I prefer BA’s day and evening-time economy offering over KLM, on the basis of a better selection of beverages (eg. no spirits available on KLM); KLM are better for early morning flights (sandwiches and pastries instead of the BA Pannini, which is far past a novelty now)

KLM/AF will continue to win my business more consistently than BA within Europe, but that’s on the basis that they fly more conveniently and with better connections to the places I need to go to do business than anyone else.

[Vertrek]

pinstripes&airmiles

In my case when flying EuroTraveller, as far as I can remember, hot drink was non existence while for coke, I was offered a cup and poured from the normal size coke can in supermarket instead of the smaller version of it, like in KLM, but it really doesn’t matter.

While as a person who always happy whenever I board a plane, I find KLM crew to be more cheery then the BA one and in the past six months from all of my BA flights only once when I found the crew was happy to do his job. But again, both crew are still professional.

I also found that KLM crews to be better when it come to dealing with non European. 🙂

—– || —–

RichH1

I do agree with you about the cultural differences and how one prefer their own national airlines to the rest, but it is not only down to the the “home culture” factor, I believe it also due to advertisement and how they trick our mind to be familiar with the brand.

If you are in London, you can see BA adverts scattered around London. This create a certain hype and view about the company. Londoners, consciously or unconsciously will see this advert almost in every tube stop in central London. The thing about our brain is that, it record what our eyes see even if we don’t consciously remember it.

Therefore, If you asked the British people in the UK who never travel “what is the best airline on earth?” the brain will relate the question to it most familiar one and I can rest assure you BA will be their first answer. Same goes to the German with Lufthansa, the French with AF and the Dutch with KLM.

And familiarity produce a sense of comfort to one’s mind, and with this state of mind, expect only positive view toward the whole experience when they choose to travel.

Or maybe it is much more simple than that, maybe its just the national pride. :-p (damn! I waste my energy making a hypothesis!)

While, training wise, generally services in London is way better then those in Amsterdam in term of friendliness and professionalism.
But its the other way round when it comes to their respective national Airlines. At least in my experience. I wonder why? Perhaps what rferguson said is true, perhaps it is down to their HR or I/O Psychologists when they recruit and the company relation with the employee? 🙂

Safe Travel.

[AMcWhirter]

Vertrek – you make some interesting observations about BA and the UK.

But you miss the point that London is not the only city in the UK. There are millions of travellers residing in large regional cities which BA tends to neglect.

As has been said before, our so-called national airline BA does not operate a single international flight from any UK airport other than London.

So while Londoners may think highly of BA, it’s not the same case in Birmingham or Manchester or Leeds or Edinburgh or Belfast.

Regional travellers feel neglected by BA and so 100,000s of them have turned to the likes of EK, EY, QR, KL, LH, AF etc for their international flying.

[ChrisBuda82]

It might be diffrent when BA takes over BMI as they fly from other airports more?

[Author]

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