Review of KLM flight Amsterdam → Munich in Business

Hello all,

After a few, but wonderful days with my fiancé & family celebrating christmas, it was time for me to return to work, so the company I work for booked me on a scheduled KLM flight on the 28th (as I was not available on the 27th) to only return home on the 31st of december to celebrate the New Year's eve. 

It was also a surprise to me and my colleague to be called for work as it was usually a period of us being free given that most factories are closed and it was not financially viable to have an aircraft on standby, but unfortunately Covid-19 is here and we were hired by the Irish government to transport Covid-19 samples from Dublin to Munich for a week. The usual airline that performed those flights canceled their availability for that week for reasons unknown to us, although it gave me a chance to write a few reports about KLM itself rather than Cityhopper.

Shortly before checking in online, I upgraded myself for 79 euro to business class to be able to work in the lounge for my second job and decided to use the public transport to the airport as that would be most convenient to me given that I do not have any parking fees and it is always a doubt whether we return to Amsterdam rather than a different airport given the ad-hoc operations we perform.

Without any public transport hassle, I arrived to Schiphol about 2 hours in advance to my departure in a closed, yet very lively airport.

The KLM check-in section however was very quiet for economy as well as business.

I proceeded myself to the Sky Priority check-in to drop my luggage and it took no more than a mere minute to clear as they somehow did not need to verify my documents and vaccinations like they needed to do so on my return leg.

Security for Sky Priority passengers was as quiet as the check-in was and it was a breeze to pass. After clearing security, I went directly to KLM's Schengen lounge which was very lively and quite busy compared to landside. Hot buffet was opened and I chose a location in the dining section to position myself as it was the only part of the lounge that did have some quiet parts. 

On the right side of the kiosk, coffee, tea and cold snacks like wraps were served, while on the other side of that platform hot food was served including a tomato and vegetable soup.

The other selections of hot food were pasta, a type of cream sauce for the pasta, beef stew and some grilled vegetables.

I returned with some cold snacks and some hot snacks to have some dinner as I would need some food given that I will fly the entire night with no chance of getting some food. Food was good, but not memorable.

Shame I do not have a steady hand and I always manage to spill some coffee on the walk to my seating location.

I managed to get a solid 1.5 hour of work done before heading to the gate ad by this time the lounge was much quieter than it used to be when I entered the lounge.

While regular airside shops used to be open given the stricter lockdown in the Netherlands, the union managed somehow to get the government to cancel that exception for airside shops and they were forced to close as well, so only restaurants and pharmacies were allowed to be open.

By the time I arrived to my departing gate, boarding was almost completely. PH-BGH would do the honours of bringing us to Munich. It is a Boeing 737-700 named after the bird Godwit and has been in service with KLM for more than 12 years at the time of flying. 

It has been quite a while for me to actually catch a flight on the main fleet of KLM due to the fact that many flights were downsized to Cityhopper flights due to limited passenger demands. 

Seat 3F would be my seat for the flight. PH-BGH still carries an older cabin and I doubt KLM would be planning to update the 700's variants as they are briefly being phased out by -800's, but KLM announced earlier this year that they will replace their 737 fleet to an A320 fleet which was a surprise to me as KLM was always a strong Boeing contender. 

Upon enterring the cabin, the friendly flight attendants of today's flight handed us some wet wipes to clean our hands.

Business class consisted of 4 rows, but was only occupied by me and a single other passenger. Economy did not do a much better job as I think the load for economy was approximately 30%.

A rainy day which obstructed me from taking a good solid photo of the view I had from my window.

Pushback was way ahead of time and the pilot thanked us earlier for providing them with such a speedy boarding. We were eventually rolling for departure 10 minutes ahead of our scheduled departure.

My only concern was that the lights were not dimmed for departure and that's quite a concern for safety guidelines from my point of view. In case of an emergency, your eyes need a few important seconds extra to get used to the dark to be able to exit the aircraft.

After reaching a safe altitude for flight attendants to move, the friendly purses stopped by to ask whether I would take some dinner for tonight and what drink I'd like to have. She always stopped a few moments to have a chat and show some interest for my travel purpose. While KLM is not the best airline by far, I always appreciate the chatty flight attendants with them.

A few minutes later she returns to hand me my drink and this beautifully designed box with my dinner inside. 

Dinner would be a ceasar salad with a cherry pie as dessert. Food again wasn't memorable, but it was not bad either. At least all the products were fresh and filling.

Flight attendant came by to clean my table as soon as I was finished and kept asking me throughout the entire flight if I'd like something else to drink which I respectfully declined as I don't want to pay a visit to the lavatory every five minutes.

Literature in the seat pocket was the same as my flight earlier this month and contained a sickbag, safety card and KLM's magazine with their main focus on Africa. 

The business cabin was very quiet like I said before with the other passenger being seated at seat 2A. Flight attendants did a very good job to keep the cabin as quiet as possible and to direct any Economy passenger to the aft galley rather than occupying the front galley to use that toilet.

The standard panel feature is available on the flight with individual airvents which is a feature I really appreciate due to the fact that you can adjust the temperature somehow for yourself. 

Not much later, the captain informed us about the descent into Munich Airport and that approach would be quite bumpy with rainy and windy conditions. We would be landing 20 minutes ahead of schedule for the southerly runway 26L. Despite the very windy conditions, landing was very smooth.

We were parked next to an Airbus A319 of ITA Airways who's still wearing the former livery. I wonder how long it will actually take ITA for them to change the livery of the entire fleet.

Disembarking was quite quick and forced us to use a hallway above the actual terminal to bring us to the baggage claim. The German border police was waiting for us to verify whether we had performed our ''Einreise anmelding'' (PLF form) and our vaccination status. It took about 10 minutes to clear (given that there was another flight prior to us).

While border police took quite a while with other passengers, the guy merely asked for my passport and said it's good. Luggage was already on belt and I was off to check-in with the Movenpick hotel before being back at the airport for our night rotation.