To kick off our trip to Europe, we flew KLM business class from Chicago to Amsterdam. While I’ve flown KLM’s business class several times before (including on the A330 and the 787-9), I was excited about this flight because it was operated by a Boeing 787-10. Not only does this plane have a different business…
Continue reading: Review: KLM Business Class Boeing 787-10
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I'm flying this from LAX next month. Do you find the last row to be loud with bathrooms/galley behind it?
Does anyone else find the Flying Blue website (whether accessed via Air France of KLM) to be glitchy? It could be me, but the same problems that existed pre-pandemic are still happening. Anyway, worth it for some great deals on flights to Europe from the west coast, but still a bit frustrating.
Typicaly Dutch mentality, as beer you only had Heineken...As a Belgian we don't even consider that 'beer.' They should at least have some Belgian beers, just as they have Belgian water on the menu and in your seat pockets. That's one of the reasons I avoid KLM at all time.
So then which seat/787 variant do you prefer? Did I miss it in my speed reading?
Thanks. Perfect timing. ORDAMS next week. Will also be my first time on their 787-10. Oddly, I have usually found the stewards to be more pleasant than the stewardesses on KLM.
While their business product is getting a bit better I still avoid KLM unless a last resort. I find AMS to be the singular worst airport at this point compared to FRA, MUC, VIE, ZRH or even CDG. It's abysmal. Such a hard fall from years ago when it was by far the best.
Yes-constantly freezes when doing award searches! I thought it was just my computer.
It's funny to me that an airline that appears to have eliminated most Covid cutbacks (evidenced by PDB and glassware) is still serving mains with a cover on them. Is there anybody who views this as some sort of actual safety protocol? Restaurants don't serve your food covered. It just seems odd, and I'm not sure what the intent is.
Yes, doesn't work on any browser on my mac. I found the AF or KLM apps are much better.
Does the KLM house have to be sealed in a bag when transiting through Ams? I've only flown it back to the states on klm biz
Are you sure it will still be a 787-10 though? I believe they change the equipment to 787-9 starting in November.
A pity that KLM got rid of individual air vents on the 787. They had them on the 747 combis. I wonder if Air France management had anything to do with it.
Indeed. Schiphol suffers from frequent weather problems due to its location and noise abatement restrictions. Fog and wind often delaying flights The terminal is also not as easy to navigate as in the past. CDG terminals 2e-f are easier to navigate and linear. At least there’s also a train.
All the lounges at ohare are woeful :(. Swiss. Klm. Even the British airways first class. Am I missing something?
Usually you have a good view of planes at least from that lounge. Including the klm 747 that used to fly that route. Last time I took it in 2018 they unloaded a vintage army jeep from its hold. Pretty cool.
Beer on draft is pretty cool on klm
@khati. It's barely, but I honestly prefer CDG now over AMS. It's become a cluster... Of course, give me MUC, FRA, or ZRH any day. And why, even when faced with a lesser product in flight, I will tend to lean towards connections or departures from those airports.
Not sure however t5 is being expanded and I understand delta will eventually transfer all its ( domestic ) operations there
I asked the SkyClub agent about the move to T5 when I was at O’Hare this summer. If I’m remembering right she gave me a date in October 2022
happy to read this KLM review including the interesting story of KLM’s Dutch Houses over the years
Will need to try the app I guess. I can only search for one flight successfully before it falls apart. At least those program is valuable and planes are generally pretty good in the premium cabin, though the IT is a letdown kinda
Too bad those were not Morels in that sauce, and those poor snow peas looked like they were microwaved to death. Still, the food looked light years better than anything I've been served on United in the last year.
It depends on where you're coming from. If your arrival flight comes from a region that entails passing security before transit in Schiphol, then the FAs on board can seal the house in plastic for you. If you're coming from NA, no need to seal in plastic. If you have a long connection and want to escape the prison-like Schengen lounge, there are lockers under the stairs from upper-level D (lounge 25 and company).
Schiphol: the Polderbaan (36L departures/18R arrivals) sucks, adding a 20-minute commute across two motorways and into the next province. While sprawling, the terminal layout makes sense, although the last few times I went through there, the outdoor area at the base of D, upper (Schengen) floor, was closed. The airport is well integrated into the Dutch rail network, although that network breaks down on weekends.
Roissy/CDG: A single architect is responsible for all terminals, and the whole structure is a testimony to the failure of the French system of rule by technocratic elites, revealing it to be a fig leaf for rule by incompetent aristocrats. T1 has those baffling escalator tubes going all directions around an impossible-to-orient symmetrical circle, surrounded by satellites. I like it for the purity of distopian vision. 2E (Schengen) actively encourages impossible crowds at the gates. 2F killed people. The train station has machines that don't take non-French cards, and the wait for the ticket counter is at least half an hour. The train to the city takes an hour through the Northern suburbs, with hints of the line from Gary to Chicago, only the seats are dirtier and the people not as nice.
But the AF lounges are pretty good, and, well, Paris ain't such a bad little town.
The KLM 747 -400 is sorely missed . Nothing replaces it according to passengers and crew members .
I just booked FLR-AMS-ORD in business for the return leg of my vacation next May. 55k Chase points transferred to Flying Blue was too good of a deal to pass up, especially considering no other major airlines are currently showing any saver business class awards next summer. Looking forward to flying KLM and the 787-10.
Don’t know why you’re not including the star rating, origin/destination and Ben Says at the top of trip reports any more. I loved that feature in the early days of the redesign. Please bring it back!
Hahaha Belgian nationalist. Avoiding airline because of beer. How stupid is that.
We flew this in reverse a few weeks ago. Very comfortable seats allowing for a great nap. The food was interesting. A veal and a fish meal were our choices. Both loaded with carrots which my boyfriend is allergic to. The fish was served raw and im allergic to that. It was ironic how limited our choices were because of the allergies. Neither of us felt well enough to drink alcohol due to being awake for 24 hours by that point. Food and drink are better on Delta comfort plus but the seat was wonderful on the KLM flight.
Not flying KLM, I rather fly SQ to Frankfurt.
The food choices sucked, I rather not eat that crap.
KLM is an airline of contradictions. They waste money on little things like the gift houses, upscale chinaware or even serving a meal on 1-hour intra-Europe flights, but then they have school cafeteria quality food and generally the cheapest wine, even in business-class, of all the major Western airlines. Same for the KLM lounges. I find myself wandering around AMS because KLM's flagship lounges are just depressing. $5 wine, lousy food, and overcrowded. At least Air France manages to spend a little more money on wine and has better food, despite being part of the same company as KLM.
For what it's worth, the Air France website still lists the Chicago lounge as being open and operational.
https://www.airfrance.us/US/en/common/guidevoyageur/salons/salon-ORD-CHI.htm
The selection of restaurants at AMS is horrendous. Dutch passport control also take far longer than CDG. CDG has Sky Priority lanes for passport control, too.
@ Jill -- Yep, back in the day it was. I remember flying this route on a Boeing 747-400. RIP the Queen of the Skies indeed.
@ Brian -- The 787 is an all around great plane. Personally I have a preference for the A350 over the 787, but compared to virtually any other plane, it's a fantastic ride.
@ VT-CIE -- Sorry, my mistake, will add it back. Wasn't intending to get rid of it, just sometimes forget to add it, so I appreciate the reminder.
@ andy -- In this case the houses didn't have to be placed into bags, since we didn't have to clear security during our connection.
@ Jerry -- Agreed, but I think this is true across airlines. So many airlines have arbitrary coronavirus-related rules nowadays, often with little rhyme or reason.
@ Another Lump -- Can't say I had a strong preference one way or another (and I usually notice little details). I found the seats to be very similar.
@ TomLV -- Yes, the site is TERRIBLE for doing award searches. You're not alone. Perhaps a good topic for a blog post in hopes of getting it fixed.
Lucky - ORD Terminal Five is going through a huge renovation/expansion (and after its complete the rest of the airport...). I suspect the lounge windows were blacked out by the expansion construction.
Still a rather meek lounge to begin with (BA lounge doesn't have actual windows fwiw) but hopefully the expansion will allow better lounges to be built. Delta and their partners are consolidating to T5 so I assume it will get a new Sky Club as well.
After flying Lufthansa J to Europe, KLM AMS-ORD on the way back was like JAL 1st class in comparison. Hard and soft product ex-AMS was better than EVA, Cathy, & Singapore J (and a half dozen European carriers I've tried).
We took an AF ORD:CDG:LIS trip at the end of September and unfortunately the horrible lounge was still very much open and in operation. I was utterly confused by the fact that they had 4-6 attendants working in the lounge the entire time adding packages of potato chips to the trays but were completely befuddled when a guest asked for a glass of ice to go with his vodka or another complained that they were out of hand towels in the restroom. The bathrooms were significantly worse than those in the terminal. I'm hopeful that with all of the construction happening in ORD's international terminal that AF/KLM manage to open a new lounge. The Delta SkyClub at ORD isn't anything to write home about, but it's dramatically better than the AF/KLM lounge, unfortunately you can't access it from the international terminal. My next trip on KLM/AF that isn't out of ATL/DTW/MSP/JFK will probably be from Dallas or Houston. I do find that the redemption rates and availability for AF/KLM operated flights booked through FlyingBlue are MUCH better out of non-Delta hubs for somewhat obvious reasons, so I'm generally willing to fly West to go East to Europe.
I've pre-ordered GF meals on KLM multiple times and the food is generally good and has reduced allergen ingredients as they also use the GF meal as the dairy free, shellfish free, etc. I would warn you that they have all featured carrots though as they were generally stews of beef and root veggies.
On AF the GF meals are hilariously bad. They consist of 3-4 salads for dinner all featuring the same vegetables and fruits just cut in different shapes. For breakfast it's 4 fruit salads. Oh and both have inedible Udi's pre-packaged rolls which should be banned by the FAA as they could be used to stone a fellow passenger or FA.
Somehow, similar to you Lucky, I actually flew very similar flights over the summer. I flew EWR-ATH roundtrip in Emirates Business Class on the 777-300ER in mid-July (with my parents) and then in early August, I flew JFK-AMS roundtrip in KLM Business Class (with my partner), the 787-9 going there and 787-10 coming back (seat 6A on both flights).
While many commenters seem focused on the negatives of KLM, I can confidently say that while Emirates had a vastly more extensive menu and the presentation was better than KLM (actually - only for the appetizers, the pre-plated main meals in Emirates had awful presentation), the quality of food on Emirates was...honestly...pretty disgusting. Like mostly inedible in Business. I have flown Emirates business before and felt that way in 2019 but wasn't sure if it was a one off. My mom couldn't find a single thing on the ATH-EWR flight back that she liked, so the Emirates FA gave her a crew meal at her request.
KLM doesn't try or pretend to be an Emirates or Singapore or ANA, and I appreciate that. They have a personality that none of those airlines have (I've flown them all multiple times), and the food on KLM wasn't amazing, but it was better than Emirates. Especially the breakfast (similar to what Lucky had above, except we did have fresh croissants served from a basket and an additional entree option since we flew the late night to AMS where dinner was a one tray supper service and breakfast had more options). The breakfast Emirates served arriving into ATH was disgusting. I have photos of all 4 flights including meals and menus.
Just wanted to share my two cents! For what it's worth, we had absolutely lovely flights on KLM both ways. Emirates' seats + food took away from all the other glitz and glam of flying them. I found the food in Emirates' coach to be better on prior flights.
Your web server is having problems. The majority of photos aren't loading. Some do, some are taking minutes, and some are timing out. Happened when review was first posted yesterday, and still happening today.
Were one of the toilets in business class blocked for the crew? KLM has been doing this on flights to Asia / Africa during the pandemic and I'm curious to know if this is done only on some routes or if it is a policy across the board.
I talked to them last month about a shower. The current DL lounge at ORD doesn't have one, but they assured me the new one in T5 would have one. I imagine this will be the SkyTeam lounge for all of ORD since all SKyTeam flights will operate there. I anticipate the lounge will be at the Seattle level or better. They told me about 6 months. But of course that's "airport construction time"
Those were not morel mushrooms lol. It's always amazing to me that not a single airline can match Jetblue Mint in regards to food without serving caviar, foie or lobster. Jetblue's catering should teach classes to the rest of the planet.
#grammar Guri; you don’t deserve to fly anywhere other than in the cargo area.
If it's sealed is it ok to carry on? We've got an all day layover in Ams so wanted to go into the city on the layover.
Thanks. That is indeed interesting. I have recently flown round-trip KLM business class on AMS-NBO (787-9/10) and AMS-DEL (777-300), and AF business class CDG-BLR (787-9 going and A350-9 return) where one toilet was reserved for the crew. On some flights there was only one toilet available for a completely full business class cabin.
Any thoughts on how one might get AF / KLM to clarify what their policy around this is?
I brought this up with the purser who all said it was being done due to the pandemic. I wrote to KLM asking about it but got no response. To me it seems like a selective practice employed on only some routes.
About to take this flight as well! Took advantage of Flying Blue promo and paid 43,500 miles (+ $230 taxes) for Chicago to Paris in Business. However, I did have to pay 8,000 Delta miles to position myself , but total came to 51,500 miles (+$236 taxes). I have taken AirFrance and KLM in the past as well, and concur with Lucky's overall assessment (though I found KLM service to be slight more sharp?). It's not Singapore Airlines or JAL, however, great seat to cross the Atlantic, crisp service, and good food/wine selection. At around 50,000 points/miles, a steal every time!
I know this was written nearly two years ago, but the AF/KLM lounge has since been replaced by a phenomenal DL / SkyTeam lounge in T5. Frankly, it'd be worth a transit through T5 for you to review this new space, Lucky. It's a beautiful interior space and the planespotting is top-notch.
Io ho volato con i 777 di KLM, 787-10 e 787-9 sulla rotta AMS-PTY, e AMS-BOG, i 787-10 sono i migliori e la classe Business offre un buon compromesso fra prezzo e prestazioni, per me in Europa é la migliore
I have sat in 1 A a couple of times and liked it. I was not bothered by the proximity to the toilet, galley because of the layout of the plane. I like the bulkhead seats in business class because of the extra room and no one sitting in front of you.