On the 11th of January, I flew between Amsterdam Schipol and Hong Kong International on a Boeing 777-200ER. I was especially excited to fly this flight because of the cheap price of tickets to Sydney (my final destination), and because of the notoriously bad cabin design compared to other airlines. The aircraft has started to be fazed out due to the new 787’s that the airline has acquired and this was another reason I was excited as they had just announced the replacement of the aircraft. But how was KLM’s cheapest and, some would say, most overcrowded and outdated, business class seat compare!
I came to Amsterdam from another flight, a KLM flight from LHR to AMS, which I have also written a flight review of. The inbound flight was quite pleasant, though the seats were pretty outdated. Here are some planes that I saw upon landing in Amsterdam in the terminal.
All descriptions of the photos are underneath the photos, not on top. Enjoy :)
1. Aeromexico 787 to MEX
2. SunExpress 737
3. Corendon 737
4. KLM 737
5. KLM Asia 777-200
Out of all of these planes I think I want to try out the Aeromexico 787 the most, but I’d quite like to be on a Corendon long haul flight.
Anyway, after some plane spotting I saw our aircraft. A Boeing 777-200 which had come in from Atlanta, I think. The aircraft was quite old at this point but it had a nice coat of paint.
1. KLM 777-200 to Hong Kong (my plane)
Amsterdam Schipol airport, though I was only there for a couple of hours, is not that nice and is pretty mediocre. The lounge was closed, which was a bummer as all the KLM flights were leaving to long haul destinations. The airport had a good number of restaurants, a good but slightly lacking amount of seats. Overall, Amsterdam is just a place where planes take off. There is nothing particularly special.
The actual flight was due to take off at 4:30pm, but boarding was much earlier due to the long taxi times at AMS, we ended up boarding at 3:30, an hour before. The seat looked ok, and the outdated claims are valid.
Here is a look at KLM’s 777-200ER business class. The aircraft is set up in a 2 2 2 config, squeezing in two extra seats. The aircrafts outmost seats are not staggered with the other seats, leading to you having to climb over your seat mate if they are sleeping. Luckily my seat mate was my mum so there was no issue for me, but if you are solo travelling strangely picking one of the middle seats offers the most privacy. On the seat there was a pillow and a small amenity kit which was much appreciated and I still own a KLM pen. The seat also came with headphones and a bottle of water.
These photos show some of the stuff happening before takeoff. The crew came around with pre-departure drinks and I got an orange juice which was nice and refreshing. The central arms rest is shared between the two seats, however it is giant so its really not a problem. Photo 2 shows the massage and bed function, with these seats being lie-flat I slept for a good chunk of the flight. Photo 3 shows the console, sorry for the bad photo. This controls the TV. Photo 4 shows the headphone connector and all of the other ports which I know nothing about. Final photo shows how I received a nice hot towel before departure. The crew on this flight were very nice and responsible. They didn’t appear much but when they did it was good service.
A touch of plane spotting before taking off. Right next to us was an aircraft I have wanted to fly on for the longest time, the Kenya Airways 787. Second photo shows a long haul Corendon A350! One of my favourite planes, right at the top of my bucket list. Photo 3 shows another aircraft from my bucket list, Suriname Airways A340! Photo four shows our runway and photo 5 is a lovely photo in the sky as the sun sets. No this is not edited, that is what the sky looked like outside of my window. The takeoff was one of the worst I have ever experienced. The aircraft nosed so high up it felt as if we were going to stall. They put on more power after already being off the ground. We were above the clouds in about 20 seconds. My theory is that it was about to snow because a light snowing fell afterwards, making me wonder if they wanted to get above the clouds as quick as possible.
Food service started shortly after.
The food situation on KLM is wild. I had no idea what I was eating for almost every meal. The first image I think was salmon? Second image shows how I was served some Sprite. Upon takeoff we also received some pre-meal nuts, and got the HOUSE! The KLM house is incredibly famous and I know own one! The final image shows the best part of the starter, a bottle of vinegar. It meant you couldn’t taste anything! The starter was so weird I gave up trying to finish it.
The main course was a selection of different meats with sauces. Some of these were incredibly good. We are this with silverware! The only thing that I always think about the silverware is that they are always so cold. The hot meal contained a good amount of taste and was just a good meal. Second image shows the best part. I think the orange stuff was fish? The rice was also a standout. Overall, much better than the starter.
These four images shows what was happening in and around meal service. Before the service we got bread and butter, but after we got lots of good desert. Honestly, this was better than the starter and similarly good to the main. The little apple pie thing with ice cream and chocolate was really nice and the chocolate house was as well. A good meal service which was sort of tainted by the starter, which yes I picked but I don’t remember picking it!
Some photos taken before I went to bed. Here is a picture of the bedding which was comfy but nothing too special. I put on the seat cover and just sat there on the seat cover and with the blanket and watched some TV, which there was a side variety of. Final picture shows the wifi prices on the flight if anyone is interested and needs that. I tried to stay up for as long as possible, mainly because I wanted to see Turkmenistan, one of the most interesting countries. While the rest of my family and much of the cabin went to bed just after dinner I stayed away over Azerbaijan and then saw Turkmenistan! Yes it was just a couple of dots but it was still cool. After that I went to sleep.
After waking up over China I realised that I had slept since Turkmenistan and had missed all of the Gobi Desert. Luckily my dad had taken some photos. Breakfast was served and this was another lacking part of the flight. I will preface this by saying I’m not really a breakfast person, especially not on a plane. However this was the worst breakfast I have received on a plane and I have flown a lot. It was just so dry and wet at the same time and I barely even know what it is. Anyway we were edging closer to Hong Kong.
Touchdown! We landed at Hong Kong’s Airport and the landing was much better than the takeoff. We landed at 5: Hong Kong time, and taxied for a very long time to our gate which gave me time to do some in plane planespotting.
Cathay really does dominate their home airport don’t they!
1. Greater Bay Airlines 737 - another airline I’d love to fly
2. Hong Kong Airlines A320
3. A bunch of Cathays!
4. (I think) an Etihad 787
5. Cathay Pacific A350
1. Xiamen Air 737 squished in between some Cathays
2. EVA Air A321
3. China Eastern A330 special livery for Disney(?)
4. EVA A321
5. Our Plane! KLM 777-200ER
Overall, KLM’s 777-200ER business class product is quite outdated with quite a lot of flaws. The seats are comfortable but they are the least private business class seat ever. The food is pretty hit or miss with one of the options being terrible and the main being divine. The crew were nice, however, I think almost every passenger in business was crew except for us. There was a family of four in the first rows and then everyone else was either wearing crew uniform or was very friendly with the crew, calling them by first name. This was the beginning to my time in Hong Kong where I spent a couple of days before flying out to Sydney, Australia.
The biggest problem with KLM's J class (also in other classes though) is that KLM is often way too slow to adopt to newer standards in terms of service and is often only committing to changes when the majority of other airlines are successful with it.
Catering on KLM is abysmal and often overhyped by themself as being very initiative and tasty, however every new menu that has been created by a new so-called top-chef often turns out to be a meal that is actually much cheaper to produce for them and longer to preserve. Pre-covid they were actually one of the first airlines to offer dining on demand in J class (which I liked a lot) on certain routes as a trial, which was shelved due to Covid-19 and since then no feedback or reasoning has been given as to why it was not continued.
Now I do admit that the newer 777's and 787's have better cabins where the configuration is 1-2-1 (norm of these days), KLM is very slow to update these older cabins which I assume they have no urgency in to do so given the fact of their huge clientele who are often paying prime prices for conveniency rather than luxury.
The only thing I tend to enjoy when flying KLM is that flight attendants are generally friendly and chatty, though I must admit that our Dutch directness may not be appreciated by everyone. I know some others may consider us rude for that, while we do not mean anything bad by it 😀.
Thanks for the detailed report, though I would suggest you to capture your photos in landscape mode. Landscape photos just turn out better on Flight report. May be a thing to consider in the future!
Cheers!