Review of KLM Cityhopper flight from Amsterdam to Gothenburg in Economy

KL 1155
Depart: 12:10 PM (actual 12:32)
Arrive: 1:40 PM (actual 1:38)
Aircraft: E-190
Travel time: 1:30 (actual 1:06)
At the Airport: After a nice breakfast and walk around downtown Amsterdam, I took the 9:15 train back to Schiphol. As I already had my boarding pass for my flight to GOT, I looked around the Schiphol Plaza area at some of the shops there, especially Planes Plaza, and while I didn’t buy anything then, I definitely scouted it out for my return flight. I then cleared security (interestingly enough, they made me take my laptop out of its case here, but not back at IAD) and entered the Schengen area, which had a wide variety of shops and places to eat, so I grabbed a croissant and water and sat down in the main food court area. One downside of Schiphol is that the free wi-fi is not very good, and it didn’t work super well for me, even though all I tried to do was get on Facebook, and I didn’t feel like paying for the premium wi-fi. With that, I decided to go to the gate in concourse B, which was about a 10-minute walk from the food court. There was still quite a bit of time before departure, and there were two flights departing from the gate before mine, to GOA and TLS, to be boarded from a remote stand. There isn’t a whole lot amenity-wise in that part of Schiphol, other than a newsstand, a bar, and a coffee place, so I just sat and looked at the action on the tarmac.

Schiphol Plaza

Planes Plaza: any aviation enthusiast’s dream shop

Always fun to see the different places you can fly to from AMS

Action between concourse C and D

Connector to the Schengen gates

LO 737 to WAW

SK, AY, LH, LO

This was going to MUC

Something you won’t see back in the US; KM 319, Nickelodeon livery
Boarding started slightly after its scheduled time of 11:40, and it went pretty smoothly, until it was my turn to have my boarding pass scanned. The first bus out to the remote stand had filled up, so we had to wait several minutes for the second one. Once it came, I was actually the first one down the stairs and onto the bus, which took us into the area formerly known as the Fokker Farm, but now was basically the E-Jet Farm. When I last flew KL on our trip to Sweden in 2009, our AMS-GOT flight was on a Fokker 70, which has since been retired in favor of the newer E-jets. I was one of the last ones off the bus and onto the plane, and took my seat in 9F next to a mother, and my first impressions of the E-190 were pretty positive overall, just what I was expecting from a European short-haul aircraft. Unlike my flight from DC where I was missing one from my seat pocket, there was a copy of the inflight magazine for me here, which I had the chance to look through. At this point, we were already late, so the cabin crew was doing their best to get the flight out, but we had another Polderbaan taxi, so that added another 15 minutes, before taking off almost 20 minutes late.

Lineup at the gate

Inside the jetbridge, down to the bus

This plane was headed to GVA

This E-175 was bound for BOD a couple hours later

Our plane; I was one of the last people to board

Not a very high ceiling

Legroom was just what I was expecting for a quick flight like this

Cabin shot

According to Flightradar24, this BA E-170 didn’t fly on this day, but had done lots of LCY-AMS-LCY short hops in the last couple days

KLM Asia 772 would depart for DXB later that night

The 744 in the picture left later for MEX

This 77W had arrived at midnight from CPT, but was idle until the next day, when it left for PTY

Emergency training center

Ahead of us for takeoff was this 9W 77W, actually YYZ bound (I know 9W used to use BRU as a European hub)
The Flight: Right after takeoff, the crew got started with their drink/lunch service. On this day we had what the flight attendant called a “chicken sandwich” but it was clearly not chicken; it was more like ham. Nonetheless I enjoyed it, and had a coffee and apple juice with it. Way more than we would’ve gotten on a 1 ½ hour US flight! Other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot to say about the flight, other than that it was about half families on board. Our route took us along the Dutch coastline, over Denmark, and then the Kattegat sea before landing in GOT, and it was a very nice day for flying over that part of Europe. We began our approach at around 1:30, and after a very bumpy landing, we touched down early despite leaving AMS almost 20 minutes late.

Right after takeoff, canal leading into downtown Amsterdam

Lunch service

Cabin shot mid-flight

Over the Kattegat

First look at the Landvetter terminal
Post-flight: We had to wait a couple extra minutes to de-board, but we were off the plane pretty soon after into a pretty quiet terminal. The only other planes on the ground other than ours were a DY 738, LH 320 and a couple regional jets, and the small non-EU area was all but deserted. Our bags took a while to arrive, but I was soon out of the airport and on the bus into downtown Gothenburg.

Inside the jetbridge

This DY 738 (delivered not even a year ago) would leave for ARN later that night after a trip to LGW earlier

One last look at our plane

GOT terminal interior

Empty passport control desks (obviously ARN is the main intercontinental airport in Sweden, but airlines like TK/SU/IR/QR now have service to GOT, in addition to several charter airlines)

Windy day on the West Coast