Review of KLM Cityhopper flight Hamburg → Amsterdam in Economy

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:   

Hamburg Airport

Arriving the previous night, I booked myself a room at the Radisson Blu Hotel Hamburg Airport, which is a comfy hotel, but would recommend you not to pay the extra bucks for an airport view as this will solely give you a view of the terminal of Hamburg Airport itself.

The view of the terminal from the hotel

The walk from your hotel to airport is literally just a minute long and requires you to cross the parking garage with some interesting cars parked along the way. While it is outside, the pathway to your terminal has a cover.

My flight would depart from Terrminal 1 as displayed by this sign.

Upon enterring the terminal, It gave me a very spacious feeling, though lots of space was not being used with a variety of restaurants and shops a few levels up.

Grabbed myself a boarding card via those machines and went up to security, which did not take long as it was pretty quiet. Though the signage of security could have been a bit more clear as many passengers did assume that you had to go up a level to security, which wasn't the case obviously.

Airside was pretty quiet with all shops being opened.

Grabbed myself a bite and a coffee with a view over the apron. Not a lot of movement to be honest, but enough to be entertained.

about 40 minutes before departure, our bird arrived. Today's flight was first scheduled to be an E-190, but was changed to an E-175 a day before the flight. The flight itself was being operated by PH-EXS. A 2.8 year old bird that has solely flown for KLM Cityhopper.

Flight to Amsterdam

I received a notification from KLM that boarding already started ahead of it's time and if we could make our way to our departure gate as KLM was trying to depart ahead of schedule if possible. Boarding eventually went via groups, which seems to be a German guideline for Covid-19 as KLM does not perform this procedure in Amsterdam. Upon enterring the plane, the flight attendant greeted and welcomed us on board and the entire boarding process did not take more than 15 minutes to complete.

Booked myself a seat for an extra 11 euros in the forward cabin which came with a view over the engine and wing.

While the Economy section was fully booked, the economy plus section (which can basically convert itself to Business class if demand was high) was rather empty with me and one other passenger occupying it. A few passengers tried to move forward from Economy to sit in this cabin, but were kindly requested by the flight attendant to move back to their seat or pay an additional fee.

An Airbus A320 (D-ABHG) of Eurowings prepping for it's flight to Milan Malpensa (MXP) as EW 7822

The legroom is similar to the one you would receive in J class.  

About ten minutes ahead of time, we were pushing back for our departure to Amsterdam, while this Boeing 737-700 (LN-TUL) of SAS arrived from Oslo (OSL) as  SK 4829.

Safety instructions were quickly done and it only required a very short taxi ride to our departing runway, which was Runway 23 for today and also meant that we would fly in a pretty straight line to Amsterdam Airport as this runway was facing a westerly direction.

Departed ahead of schedule with our last views of Hamburg Airport where you can see a few 747s of Lufthansa being stored and probably would only fly to storage when Lufthansa reported that they'll most likely retire all 747-400s and another Boeing 787 of Uzbekistan Airways who received some maintenance.

I do love those enhanced winglets on the E-jet. 

After reaching a safe altitude for Flight attendants to conduct their work, they quickly served us an hand sanitiser gel and be careful upon opening them as you may spill the gel.

The seat literature is the usual to my previous reports. A magazine, safety card and a sickbag. Mind you that KLM reduced their magazine to season based and did receive a special coating to kill any bacteria (if it really works that is).

KLM is probably the airline with the most confusing route map in their magazine and they did not update their partners for a significant period of time as Adria was still listed as a partner while it filed for bankruptcy in September 2019.

About 20 minutes into flight, the flight attendants came around to serve us our complimentary snack and drink service. It consisted of a small cup of water, a lemon cake and a choice of drink, which was juice, water, coffee or tea. 

 The view of the cabin.

After a very short ride from Hamburg, we were already approaching Amsterdam Airport through thick clouds and the female captain checked in with us again to inform us with the latest information available and thanking us for flying with them. 

On approach to Runway 18R, which again is the most furthest runway possible and would require us to taxi an additional 15 minutes to our stand. The weather wasn't really cooperating with us today.

After a 15 minute ride, we were parked next to our bigger sister who arrived from Dusseldorf early in the morning and was now resting until late in the evening when it would depart for Aalborg, Denmark.

Amsterdam Airport schiphol

As it was a remote stand, disembarking was done via stairs and would require us to be shipped to terminal by bus. It also gave me a last view of the beautiful E-175 jet, which definitely is an enjoyable bird to fly on as a passenger.

Due to a very early arrival, I was in a bit of a hurry to proceed to the train station and had no time to capture any photos as I could catch a train earlier than expected and eventually did make it on time for that train.

Thanks for stopping by!