KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has announced some changes to its long haul experience, and I must say, the headline caught my attention. The airline is planning a new service concept for intercontinental flights, with ”more room for personal contact and an increase in the number of seats.”
Continue reading: KLM Adding More Seats & Personal Contact On Long Haul Flights: Say What?!
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Who knows why it's so incredibly challenging for airlines to say what is simply happening without putting some meaningless customer service spin on it.
They could increase passenger interaction any time they wanted, so this tells you nothing, as if we want lots of passenger interaction for its own sake. Give us drinks, food, services, the things we paid for -- that's the point of customer interaction. I don't care if the FAs walk up and down the aisles 50 times "interacting".
And I don't know another industry where making someone add a task to their responsibilities gets scrutinized by more committees for whether this is in the contract or not.
So ridiculous.
With the densification, pax are also getting more 'personal contact' with each other. Who needs dating apps!?
They are going from 54 to 84 meals per trolley just be changing how they stack them? Why does it sound like the meals will be getting smaller?
KLM is not restrained by the capacity in AMS for at least the next decade. They have deliberately maintained a huge regional jet fleet in order to secure as many slots as possible. To some destinations they fly 5 Embraers a day instead of 2-3 mainline jets, just for the sake of hoarding AMS slots.
They'll slowly replace those with larger aircraft and expand that way. It will be a long time until they are in a position like BA in LHR with actual limits on expansion. And even then, being the largest carrier at a slot restricted airport is a great position to be in.
Probably adopting a service flow like Delta where they get rid of the coach trays, which allows the individual components to be stacked tighter in the carts, but which increases work for the FAs, who have to hand out individual components. (Hence saying passengers will have more crew interaction.)
Domestic first class seat, economy product, 3x the economy price. Versus extra legroom economy - economy product, economy seat, valued at ~$100 above an economy fare.
Extra legroom economy has been the most cost effective product for families traveling together that want a little extra space. Airlines are gutting it. Premium economy is often just not worth the price, but people keep paying for it.
Everything that is not a passenger seat including lavs and galleys does not generate money. KLM is reducing the amount of galley space by being more efficient w/ meal stacking and presentation. AA is reportedly getting rid of bread on some of its aircraft because the space for it on the tray takes up too much room. Airplane bread is generally poor quality esp. if it is sealed in plastic as is the case in US carrier economy.
A number of airlines have cart storage space outside of the galley or cross aisle passageways such as on some LH aircraft which wastes space.
As for service flow, DL's normal economy service pattern includes a drink service before dinner and then another with dinner and another after dinner as trays are collected - along w/ a water bottle after takeoff. When JV partners have very different service patterns, customers notice.
Air France has improved its quality more than KLM - or other European airlines - over the past few years. This is KLM's opportunity to upgrade its service
At the moment there is a massive labour dispute going on between KLM and (ground) staff. The past two weeks, today and next week there are strikes going on.
KLM is trying to reinvent itself and is losing a lot of what KLM tries to stand for. It’s an interesting time within the company.
What’s efficient for the airline may not be efficient for the passenger. KLM currently has a high proportion of transit passengers; but UK business travellers who have a choice of transit via LHR or AMS will look at total journey time including the layover. If there are fewer feeder flights to AMS, that means, on average, longer layovers. And at some point LHR becomes a more efficient choice.
Not for everyone: KLM serves more of England’s airports than BA (I haven’t checked Scotland, though suspect it’s more balanced). So your proposal to reduce flight frequency would probably work where KLM has no competition from BA.
"One certainly wonders what changes will be made to meals to allow this more efficient “stacking,” since that raises some eyebrows."
My guess - the items for a single tray will be bulk loaded in a cart. For example, most airlines load carts with pre assembled trays. The trays are stacked three or four per layer, each tray already has say a cutlery pack, side dish, butter, dessert placed on the tray. Crew member places the chosen hot choice on the tray and gives to customer.
Some airlines - for example QANTAS - does not do this. They have the trays bulk loaded in a cart, sides and desserts bulk loaded, buttery packs bulk loaded. The crew member literally 'assembles' each tray as they serve each customer - takes out a tray, adds the cutlery pack, side dish, dessert, hot, gives to customer.
The benefits (for the business) are two fold. First, as you highlight you can fit more meals per cart. Less carts, less galley space.
Secondly, airlines pay caterers not just the cost of the meal items, but also fees to assemble each tray, transport the catering to the aircraft etc. By the caterers simply bulk loading the tray items this saves the airline money. Qantas claims that they do not save money overall as they reinvest the savings of the caterer not assembling the trays into a larger sized hot meal (one third larger than the average airline economy hot meal). But we will have to take their word on that one 😉
In fairness when you fly KLM, BA or Lufthansa, you aren't really after their in-flight meals...
Delta, KLM's JV partner, switched to the bulk load/FA assembled/larger portion model several years ago.
Ambivalent about the other changes, but I'm glad to see more premium econ seats. Those have proven to be a good balance between comfort and cost for flying on FB points to Europe for me.
"KLM aims to respond to passenger wishes"
... yes, the one thing I constantly hear passengers say is, I wish there were more people crammed into this airplane.
Hello KLM!
What an innovative idea. I often feel secluded and isolated while flying Business. Why don’t you remove the existing business class configuration and introduce a blocked economy seating product for Business Class on your long haul flights as well? That way I get to welcome more co-passengers on board and increase personal contact!! Who needs a reverse herringbone when you can get reverse boned with that “spacious” legroom and seat width.
(I am being sarcastic if it wasn’t obvious and the execs at Lufthansa are looking for an alternative solution to the 787 Allegris situation).
"drink service before dinner and then another with dinner and another after dinner as trays are collected"
3 drink services?
Definitely not my recent experience in the back of DL.
In fairness when you fly ANY airline in economy, you aren't really after their in-flight meals...
Premium Economy has proven to be the most profitable for airlines. Therefore the worst value for customers.
I said by points. 60-80k round trip per person, in FAR greater comfort than a regular economy seat, is fine value to me. Especially with how much the seats retail for in dollars, as you said. And not to mention, KLM's practice of day-of paid upgrades for cheap from regular economy is also great value.
KLM used to employ beautiful Dutch women stewardesses. But these days (with the if DEI), all I see are a bunch of overweight 60 year old women and a lot of men. Letting my Flying Blue status lapse and switching to another alliance.
"Increased interaction" is a brilliant concept.
Why Korean did not think about it when trying to add 10th seat per row in economy?
"with the new layout, customers seated in the center block of seats will have an opportunity to interact with up to 33% more fellow passengers"
KLM is basically the low cost arm of Air France. Currently they have many issues including a series of strikes. AF is introducing high speed starlink wifi and blocked adjacent seats in business on embraers, whilst also refitting cabins. Meanwhile klm has no plans to upgrade the WiFi or block seats on city hopper flights. And they really need to work on the quality of food. I flew on them recently from Tokyo having flown AF outbound and it was like night and day. The food and service on AF was great whereas on KL it was subpar.
I don't get this preoccupation with the employees' physical looks. I fly KLM and other airlines to go from one city to another. If I wanted eye candy, I'd go to a strip club. Take the rose-colored glasses off and look in the mirror, you probably don't look any better.
Lol, my father doesn't like flying international First and Business Class nowadays because he feels it's too isolating. Same with my grandfather. They preferred the layout back in the day with open seats.
I try to book them on one of Qatar's old 777 J product or the open reverse herringbone seat that they have, because they don't like Qsuites.
'all I see are a bunch of overweight 60 year old women'
Are you mentally challenged?
These 'overweight 60 year old women' ARE the same 'beautiful dutch women stewardesses' you speak of.
Do you think they are cyborgs and stay 22 and a size 8 for an eternity?
What an absolutely idiotic thing to say.
I’m sure they’ll be happy to lose you as a customer. Maybe you can fly on the Knuckledraggers Express.
Doug-Singapore Airlines has a mandatory retirement age for their stewardesses and. Do not hire men.
I generally just roll my eyes at airline press releases but I sort of respect this one in an odd way. An absolute masterclass in PR nonsense.
I'm pretty darn sure on my next TATL trip in Premium Economy (surprised in so many articles' comments that people disparage PE...PE solves my height/leg room issues at an affordable-enough price point) I'm going to self-cater a delicious demi-baguette w/ real butter. Less stacking for me, except for the carbs. Also, eliminating that cross corridor in/near the galley creates one more argument that the wide body experience is no better than sitting equally crammed into a 321xlr.
UGH ! corporate speak at its finest ! Personally, regardless of the cabin that I am in, I enjoyed a separate cocktail service before the main. And after dinner coffee is nice.
But Never Have I Ever desired a more dense cabin experience. Those whacky Dutch ! My partners family are all from Holland and we travel twice a year. I hope Delta continues it's TPA-AMS nonstop service. Honestly I have never been real warm to KLM to begin with.
Yea, that's the phrase, alright! ....... " passengers wishes," my foot! That's like how everything in packaging is smaller (less ounces in the box, can, etc.) in the supermarkets. One time I questioned it with regard to tuna fish (I called the manufacturer) and the answer I got was "that's what the customer wants!" Yes, we want a smaller package for more money. They think everyone was born yesterday.......making the flying public look like a bunch of dumb idiots, but they sure want the almighty dollar! Very sad what this world has come to!!
Personal contact? How much more personal can it get when "Jo-shmo" puts his nasty bare feet on the armrest next to me or the gal in front of me flings her Rapunzel locks over her headrest to fall neatly on my tray table? No thanks. With absolutely no decorum, common sense, manners, courtesy, etc., it's a crap-shoot. And now want us to have "more personal contact?" Give me a break!
@Eskimo, I've had some great Y meals over the years. Aegean, Turkish, Garuda and Thai spring to mind- some relatively short flights in there too. Definitely not a firm expectation though, more like a positive surprise when it happens.
I have to say that, while I rarely fly in premium economy (I do about 60-70% Y on short haul and always endeavour to be up front for anything over 5-6 hours), I think that the existence of that cabin (if not necessarily the pricing of the tickets within it) makes a lot more sense than the 'extra legroom economy' idea which is a cabin within a cabin and leads to arguments around whether someone moving seats within Y is upgrading/downgrading. The customisation of the passenger experience can, and does, sometimes go way too far.
As someone trying to avoid carbs, I often carry a packet of jamón serrano or some kabanossi with me when travelling so that I can get away from the viennoiserie in the lounges and the sandwiches onboard. If you're a pork avoider, fried chicken livers can also work at room temperature as long as you don't keep them for hours and hours.
What a load of rubbish. They hire LOADS of men. My last SQ flight at least 50% of the crew complement were male.
I'm old enough to remember that the PE seats I fly transatlantic in today used to be extremely similar to the J seats I flew in back in the early 1990s when I first started working. Maybe an inch less pitch today, and a lot cheaper cash prices.
But KLM is not KLM it's Air France KLM.
The airline has two hubs. I may be more crew bases I don't know it well enough. But Amsterdam and Paris are the major hubs of the airline. This summer Air France was even promoting the fact that some of its flights were being flown by Dutch pilots.
Air France KLM is no more a single hub airline, then British airways is. IAG has hubs in Spain and London and Ireland. Further with the deep integration of sky team and a transatlantic alliance and revenue sharing, I'm pretty sure efron's KLM is beneficing from SAS, Delta, and Virgin travel.
Eliminating the crosscardo must naturally increase crew interaction because they can't stand and natter in the cross corridor
You do understand that basically the only thing the average passenger cares enough about to make a purchase decision is price. This gets the price point down, so technically it actually is the thing that passengers ask for.