I started out my flight today by arriving 2 hours prior to scheduled departure time to check in at LHR's T4. Upon arrival, I was greeted by a friendly check-in assistant who asked me where I will be travelling today. It was just a quick hop to Schiphol with KLM today, and 4.5 hours after the scheduled arrival time I already booked my tickets with another airline. It wasn't the most efficient way to travel but it was more efficient for my bank account.
So the general rule when flying with a SkyTeam member from Terminal 4 is, you can either do online check-in and drop your bags at the counter as you can do with any other airline (at least the ones I've traveled with), or you can go to the self-check in kiosk to print your boarding pass and then drop off your bags at the counter. Either way, both will make the whole check-in process faster. The nice lady behind the counter checked all my bags in, and I was straight through security.
It was very early in the morning so a lot of the other passengers were in business attire, probably on a day trip to Holland somewhere to meet other important people. The boarding time on the ticket said 08:10 and that's precisely the time when boarding commenced.
The plane used on this particular flight was acceptably clean, but I've seen cleaner aircrafts. At least the inside smelled nice and fresh instead of dusty. I didn't use the toilet for the entire flight so I couldn't tell how clean the toilet was.
The morning sun has risen. And by 08:38 we were released from the gate and we took off from Heathrow.
On board, you get no PTVs per seat as you would do on board non-EU airlines. This comes as rather silly to me as other airlines today (Qantas, American, Delta, United, Garuda, Malindo, to name a few) actually do have PTVs for every seat even in on board their narrow-body aircrafts. Well, their 737s at least. But considering how landing fees and airport slots etcetc must be priced highly in the EU and that the flights aren't usually that long, I shrugged.
On a short hop across the Channel, we were served cheese sandwiches and OJ. The cheese was, in my very honest opinion, mind-blowing. They served us cheese sandwiches with Beemster Cheese in it and I never thought I could love a cheese sandwich so much. The OJ was good but I'd definitely prefer it if they served it at a larger volume.
My apologies for the blurry photo, I was very sleepy since I had to start very early at 04:30 from Oxford.
We had landed about 4 minutes ahead of schedule, and all of us passengers went about on our own onward journeys.
Thanks for sharing this first report here. A report with just two photos isn't quite sufficient to qualify as a Flight-Report (which is different than a trip report insofar as it is more photo intensive). However, as this is your first report, I'll let it be. But please make sure to have more photos in future reports--you'll notice others on here have upwards of 100+.
This comes as rather silly to me as other airlines today (Qantas, American, Delta, United, Garuda, Malindo, to name a few) actually do have PTVs for every seat even in on board their narrow-body aircrafts
- totally agree with you, however, IME the U.S. carriers don't consistently have PTVs. It's often a gamble what you'll get even for the same aircraft type. AA, for example, only have PTVs on a small percentage of their 738 fleet, which is the backbone of their domestic fleet. Also, narrowbodies in the US and Australia tend to do much longer flights than European carriers, with A319/20/21s and 737s often doing 6+ hour transcontinental flights. Yes, there are a few longer narrowbody flights in Europe such as LHR/CDG-TLV, but it's much less common.
Also, please use the Summary section in the future to justify your grades and please use the airline's IATA code prior to the flight number. I added the KL for you. Thanks!
Thanks for all the feedback. I'll be sure to tick all the boxes next time. I'm scheduled to return to England early January with the same combo in reverse direction, but it will all be one booking to ensure trip efficiency.