Review of KLM Cityhopper flight from Amsterdam to Stuttgart in Business

Introduction

Hi all,

When I booked this flight in early July, it was originally planned on the inaugural service of KLM to Cork on the 3rd of August and hoped that Ireland would follow most European countries by opening it's borders for most travellers. Unfortunately it didn't and therefore I decided to change my flight to Stuttgart a few days ahead of my original flight. From Stuttgart I would fly the day after to Münster-Osnabruck Airport with AIS Airlines on their Jetstream 32, which is a Dutch airline I always wanted to try out, but this plan too got canceled five days ahead of my planned departure as the German authorities did not allow AIS to fly without HEPA filter, which you can rarely find on older turboprops (This flight I'll do when I can use their voucher). Now left with a flight to Stuttgart and a flight from Hamburg to Amsterdam, I tried to find a way to fly from Stuttgart to Hamburg and eventually found an interesting route with Lübeck Air to Lübeck (Thanks to the report of fellow flight reporter Euroairport68). 

So the actual routing I did on this 2-day journey is as followed:

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

I arrived at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol by public transport about two hours before my departure in yet a quiet plaza for Amsterdam's standards and went straight to the departure hall of Amsterdam.

The departure hall was pretty much deserted and it would not take more than just a few seconds or minutes to drop off your luggage if you had any as there were literally no lines. I did not need to do so and went straight for security. At security I had a little discussion with one of the ground ladies as she was directing me to the security check in Terminal 1A (new temporary hall) as she told me it was closer to my departing gates, but I specifically told her that I wanted this security check as it was closer to KLM's lounge and after a minute of five she actually realized that it was true to what I was saying… You gotta love these conversations. Security did not take long and was done in a matter of minutes.

Eventually made my way into KLM's Schengen lounge which was rather packed near the entry, but was pretty quiet in the far corners of the lounge with every seat having it's own small table and powerplug with lamp. The smoking area you could see in my first picture is closed as Dutch law prohibits these kinds of smoking room since April 1st, 2020.

The offering was limited to a choice of three different sandwiches, Croissant and Muesli served to you by the lady behind the bar who is prepping the meals. You had options to order a chicken, ham or cheese sandwich.

The only self-service you were allowed to do was to grab a coffee, some pre-packed candies and cookies on the right hand side of the coffee machine and some fruit like mandarins and banana's.

As I had already a small breakfast at home, I only took a chicken sandwich which was delicious, a cappuccino and some candies. Mind you if you do not like liquorice like most Dutch do, I would not grab these ''droptoffee's'' if I were you :). 

About ten minutes to twelve, an announcement was made in the lounge that the lounge was closing and that all passengers who'd like to remain in a lounge of KLM were welcome in another lounge of KLM as this lounge was closing as of 12 pm. It was also my call to depart to my gate as my flight would board around 12 too from the furthest gate possible from the lounge. Airside was pretty quiet as you can see in the photo below.

Our flight to Stuttgart would be operated by this little Embraer 175 of KLM Cityhopper, which to me was my first time ever on an E175 and meant that I have flown all E-jet variants (except the -E2 versions). Today's flight would be operated by PH-EXX, which is a 2.6 year old Embraer 175 that has solely flown for KLM Cityhopper. It is powered by two General Electric CF34 engines and can carry up to 88 passengers in a two-cabin configuration.

Flight to Stuttgart

Boarding started about five minutes past our scheduled boarding time and was done the usual way like pre-pandemic. We  were greeted by a lovely and chatty flight attendant named Rachel who did an outstanding job throughout the entire flight with her colleague Tom. 

A bigger brother (E190) of our aircraft was parked next to us who would depart to Alicante about an hour later as KL1509.

Legroom isn't the best for J class like most airliners in Europe, but definitely more generous compared to Y obviously.

The view from my seat. It seems that the flight was quite full today with about a load of 85% in Economy and about 80% in Business with me being lucky and having a whole row to myself.

The seat also comes with an individual air vent, which is definitely a nice add-on when wearing a face mask and an individual light.

Push-back was engaged four minutes ahead of our scheduled departure and within five minutes of push back, we were already rolling down runway 18L for our southeasterly departure to Stuttgart in probably the first departure in 2020 from Amsterdam without rain.

When we were at safe altitude, the cabin crew jumped into action by separating the J class from Y class with curtains and preparing the meal service.

Today's meal was limited to a small foodbag, which did in fact not look very promising.

The contents were a Cinnamon Swirl and a bottle of water. 

A package within a package? Guess KLM is just teasing us further with the limited offering by offering something even smaller!

The result after the second unpacking….. It was larger than the photo depicts, yet I find this pretty unacceptable for a J class meal in a flight that is suppose to be 1 hour 10 minutes. The swirl didn't taste bad, but it was not delicious either.

The lovely flight attendant returned shortly after receiving the food bag and asked what I would like to drink. I asked for a tomato juice with some salt and pepper.

So cheers to the flight.

In cruise.

The contents in your seat pocket contains of a magazine, which became a season based magazine instead of monthly due to Covid-19 and the standard sick bag and safety card for both the E190 and E175, which comes with a flaw for the E175… The safety card indicates that there are emergency exits over the wing, while in fact the E175 doesn't have any.

The flight attendant returned to our cabin when their food service was completed in Economy and asked if I would like to have another drink. I opted for some coffee and it was served together with two ''stroopkoekjes'' and a hand sanitizer gel….. I assumed it was some disinfection wipe and opened it without any attention only to be spilled with alcohol as it was really a ''gel'' and not a wipe. my bad!

Not much later the flight crew checked in with us informing us that we were already in approach to Stuttgart and gave us the latest weather information.

Both flight attendants started to pick up all trash and distribute a paper of the German federal ministry of Health explaining the guidelines and requirements for travellers entering Germany and mainly pointed to those who arrived from high risk countries.

Landing was performed on 07, which was smooth and about 10 minutes ahead of schedule, so my connecting flight to Lubeck wasn't an issue at all as I bought that one on a separate itinerary.

Eventually we parked at a stand next to this Boeing 737-800 (TC-AIS) of Pegasus Airlines who was readying for it's flight to Istanbul as PC970.

Stuttgart Airport

Disembarking was done quickly and I followed the guidelines to the exit when I saw that you could connect to your other flight too without having a new security check.

Nope, not possible…… The door was locked and I was not able to get in, so I was somehow forced to re-enter Germany and clear security once again…..

Well at least I got to see the baggage claim section of Stuttgart and the terminal itself before entering airside again. Not the finest airport I've been too, but practical and darkish like most German airports.

Thanks for stopping by!