Review of KLM flight from Amsterdam to Bucharest in Economy

Intro

On the Thursday prior to this flight, I was notified by operations that they will require me to position to Timisoara again to return to the line I was doing about two weeks ago. Given that it was the start of the holiday season in the Netherlands I feared that it would be difficult for operations to find any reasonable priced itinerary.

As Lufthansa was offering the cheapest price (520 EUROS incl. luggage), it was of course the preferred choice of operations, however that flight was scheduled to depart at 8 AM and I told operations that I was unable to catch that flight by public transport and that they would require to book me a hotel in Amsterdam, so as a suggestion I asked them to book me the KLM flight with a stopover in Bucharest for 600 EUROS as that would turn out to be cheaper if you included the hotel in the Lufthansa ticket.

At first they were a tad hesitant to book it before realizing that there would be no cheaper option and the itinerary was as followed:

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

My wife was an absolute dear to me by offering to drop me off at the airport about two hours prior to my flight and I made my way to KLM's check-in counter for Schengen flights in Terminal 1. The self check-in counter is pretty easy to navigate through and did work at a decent pace in order to obtain my boarding passes and luggage tag.

Once I had obtained my luggage tag I made my way to one of the drop off counters, which wasn't overly crowded and took no time at all. The drop off counters are very easy to navigate through.

As it was the start of the holiday season, the airport's security was becoming quite busy and I was glad I was able to bypass the majority of the lines with my Privium membership giving me access to the fast track lane at Schiphol's airport, so all in all it took me about five minutes to clear security.

As I have a Privium membership, I also gained access to their lounge, which in fact is so much more preferred than the Aspire Lounge I can also access with my Priority Pass. While this lounge isn't overly large, the food and drink offering is average (though much better compared to Aspire) with a variety of drinks and foods.

You could find a variety of breads, spreads, hot items with a select choice of drinks including soft drinks, coffee/tea and alcoholic beverages.

The lounge also tends to not be overcrowded while giving you a comfortable atmosphere which is nicely decorated with a variety of plants, dividers and seating areas. The lounge has also a terrace available, however this one was closed today due to some stormy weather that had been crossing over our country.

The lounge does have a view over the apron on the left side of the d-pier showing us a Boeing 767 of TUI and an A350 of Finnair being pushed back for it's departure to Helsinki.

Given that our flight would depart from the C-Gates, I decided to leave the lounge roughly five minutes prior to our boarding time in a quite busy hallway with some construction on the right.

Today's departure would be from Gate C10 and boarding was yet not engaged due to the delayed arrival of our aircraft. Boarding was eventually called about fifteen minutes past our scheduled boarding time. 

While the ground attendants did follow the procedure as described by KLM, the pace of the boarding was quite slow, which was partly due to the fact that several people were trying to scan boarding passes that were already scanned previously as they were traveling with multiple people.

PH-BCK, a 5,2 year old Boeing 737-800, was going to bring us over to Bucharest and this particular bird was named after the Amsterdam Albatross. It is also the second to last Boeing 737-800 delivered to KLM in April 2019.

Upon embarking the aircraft as one of the last passengers, I was still greeted with a very enthusiastic purser who welcomed us aboard.

As the flight was quite full with most seats being blocked when I checked in online, I decided to reserve me seat 23F in advance as it was only one of the few window seats yet available, however the seat did come with decent legroom and did have a decent view out of the window. As this Boeing 737-800 was one of the last 738s being delivered to KLM, it also came with their newest cabin, which to be fair is quite decent and definitely better than some of the competitors.

WiFi was equipped on the aircraft, the seat came with an USB plug and also with a smartphone holder (however the holder could do with some cleaning) and a cupholder. It also had a normal table in case you wanted some more space for your food or to work with your laptop.

The seats also came with an adjustable headrest.

**Could only take a photo of the seat during disembarkation as most of the seats were already occupied and didn't want to obstruct anyone during the boarding process**

A decent view from my window, however it started to rain unfortunately.

The aircraft is equiped with individual air vents, however I'm much more fan of those older versions as they tend to blow more air and are easier adjustable than those installed on this aircraft.

Flight attendants doing their final prep for our pushback to Bucharest with a 100% load in both Y & J Class.

About 25 minutes past our scheduled departure time, we were pushing back for our departure with a five minute ride to our active runway for a southerly departure while passing this Boeing 777F of China Eastern that was about to depart to Shanghai Pudong.

During the taxi, the cabin crew decided that it was some time for KLM promotion by changing the colours into KLM's blue!

Eventually we were airborne about 30 to 35 minutes past our scheduled departure.

About fifteen to twenty minutes into the flight, the flight attendants came around to serve us our complimentary sandwich and drink. 

The sandwich itself isn't particularly special with a minimal spread of egg salad and Beemster cheese. 

As a drink I chose for a white wine with a glass of water. The white wine served by KLM in economy is a Chenic Blanc from South Africa produced by winery Julien Schaal. 

While the wine isn't something special, a toast to our flight!

In air.

Upon completion of their meal and drink service, the flight attendants appeared once again to serve us tea or coffee. I opted for a cup of coffee.

While the first flight attendant was serving the tea or coffee, the second flight attendant handed out a tiny pastry to be eaten with your drink. I'm not entirely sure anymore as to what it was, but if my memory served me correctly  it was some sort of tiny lemon cake.

As it was one of the last Boeing 737 to be delivered to KLM, the aircraft was equipped with WiFi, which was easy to connect to without any issue and did not disconnect at any segment of the flight when it was above 10.000 ft.

Unlike most airlines, KLM did not offer internet with different timeframes, but gave you three different options for the entire flight. Messaging was free for all passengers, but those that did want to do a bit more were able to pay 10 EUR for a surf pass or 20 EUR for a stream pass. Depending on the flight length, the prices can be considered cheap yet expensive for the shorter ones, however the pricing is different on their longhaul fleet I believe.

However the Wifi didn't really give you access to any of KLM's entertainment and did only provide you with details of your trip and a map displaying the expected WiFi coverage of your flight as seen below.

After about two hours, the co-pilot checked in with us reporting that we were descending into Bucharest Otopeni, while providing us also with some weather update and told us that we were only about eight minutes behind schedule.

About to touch down at Runway 08R with a delay of five minutes past our scheduled arrival time.

A quick left turned followed soon and it took about three minutes to pull into our stand. Copilot was pretty accurate with the eight minutes late.

With the seat belts being turned off, most passengers were rushing to grab their things and I decided to do the job that should have done before by collecting my safety card from my neighbouring passenger, which had three of them in the seat pocket in front of her and placed one of them in my seat.

It took KLM about fifteen minutes to disembark almost all passengers via jetbridge in a very crowded and warm terminal with almost no seating possibility and quite a lot of construction work.

Thanks for stopping by and from here on I will continue in my next report.