[MartynSinclair]

a slight thread drift Rich but talking of hierarchies, there was once a question/thread about how people would react if when travelling with your boss, you were given an upgrade or were flying in a different better class of cabin than your boss. I guess in Japan this would result in serious s**t, even the chop!!

[SimonRowberry]

Rich,

Not sure you’re 100% right about the Dutch psyche and the KLM First Class issue.

I would suggest it had far more to do with innate Dutch thriftiness (and that is not meant in any pejorative way at all) – I’ve been married to one for almost 25 years so think I can give some closer insight that you can, Rich.

And as far as not wanting to stand out – that’s about as far from the mark as you could get. A Dutch individual LOVES to appear better than his peers. No different from the rest of us, to be honest?

Simon

[IanFromHKG]

NTarrant – I think you missed out Air New Zealand on the LHR-HKG route from your list. From my observations, and looking specifically at that route, there are more business people on BA, slightly higher proportion of self-pay passengers on CX. Don’t fly Virgin, so I can’t comment, and I also don’t fly Air New Zealand but anecdotally the only people I hear about who fly on it are leisure passengers. I would add to the comments about drivers for airline choices the fairly obvious one of global alliance affiliations. Virtually every American in my office is Star Alliance, virtually everyone else is oneworld – inevitably that pulls them to United for flights from HKG to the US, whereas everyone else chooses CX because of the better seats, better service, better lounges, etc. etc. For the same (or possibly opposite) reason I tend to fly AA on domestic routes in the US. I know the experience will be miserable whichever airline I choose, but at least I get lounge access and miles that I can use

[LuganoPirate]

I have to agree with you Simon. My first wife is also Dutch and I lived there for 12 years.

KLM stopped F for economic reasons along with the improvement in Business Class. Wealthy Dutch would buy, through their comany, F tickets for them and the family, and then deduct the costs from their corp. taxes which were very high.

The dutch tax office started clamping down on this as well as questioning people on whether F class was really necessary for the business and then looking to see if the difference could be liable for personal taxation.

Major companies then started to stop all travel in F and so KLM abolished it. Besides which, due to high levels of personal taxation most seriously wealthy Dutch left Holland for S. Africa, Switzerland and the UK.

[NTarrant]

Ian – yes I had forgotten NZ and indeed VS, so essentially there is a choice of five. My wife and I travelled QF LHR-MEL via HKG in F between Christmas and New Year, between LHR-HKG there were only seven of us in the cabin and only five between HKG and MEL, although the crew did say it is usually quite at that period. We were on Avios and there was one other guy who was clearly on miles as well.

Rich – I have a couple of friends who are Dutch and I would certainly agree with what Simon says, I couldn’t agree with your observation

[ScottWilson]

NTarrant – I wouldn’t take much from a recent flight on QF on LHR-HKG-MEL in F given that:

1. QF is dropping LHR-HKG in March entirely, preferring customers codeshare on BA on that segment to feed onto QF flights to SYD and MEL (or go the whole LHR-MEL route on its service via SIN).

2. The route is operated by 747s using what is now the old QF F product compared to the A380s (and regular travellers of QF F would also prefer the A380 route via SIN rather than this one).

3. QF hasn’t been selling F on this route over summer months for the past couple of years because of lack of demand.

Note QF is basically removing F on all routes except LHR-SIN-SYD/MEL and SYD/MEL to LAX. None of its A330s have First, and the 747s it is retaining in the fleet are all to lose First, whilst some of the remaining A380s to be delivered will be sans First as well.

First by and large is sold in viable numbers on routes with significant CEO, top level executive, high yield business (e.g. finance) and A-list celebrity traffic. I noted recently when looking to price a trip from London to Washington that First on United was cheaper than Business on United, BA and Virgin – and a look at the seat availability showed it clear with only one seat sold. Setting aside that United First is barely up with a decent business class on other airlines, it demonstrates that First doesn’t have a future on the number of routes it operates on for some airlines.

[RichHI1]

Regards our Dutch friends, no one is going to argue that the Dutch can be parsonomious. My comments on the desire not to be seen as different was based on working for an Anglo Dutch company for 17 years and visiting the Netherlands on a very very regular frequency.
All generalizations are indeed false, including this one, btu for whatever reasons the Dutch did not choose to fly First on KLM whereas the Germans do choose to fly First on LH and the NL is not short of people who could afford First CLass travel, so it is a cultural rather than financial decision.
Apologies if my cultural analysis of our Dutch friends has offended any.
Whatever the reasons thouhg, there do seem to be differences by carrier and country with regard to private passengers choosing to pay for premium classes which was the point of my original question.

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