Review of KLM flight from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur in Economy

Before we resume regular transmission…

A small tombstone to the fallen giants of Indian aviation: Jet Airways and Vistara, both of whose journeys officially came to an end in November 2024. Both were India’s top full-service airlines but met their end in starkly contrasting ways. Jet stopped flying in April 2019, grounded by crippling debt, and a long-drawn-out but ultimately doomed revival process was put to an end by India’s Supreme Court on 7 November. Vistara was long tipped to merge with Air India after the latter’s massive transformation process, and hence had its last flight on 11 November 2024, a bit under 10 years after its first — though the Vistara experience and fleet continues under a rejuvenated Air India. Without these two lodestars, Indian — and global — skies will never be the same. Rest in peace!

Let me also point out that I’ve hardly had the time to write my flight reports the past few weeks (October–November 2024), because I was all busy preparing for the CAT (Common Admission Test), the most prestigious entrance exam for Indian management institutes, which was held on 24 November 2024. (Fingers crossed for its results!)

As such, the next report in chronological order after this one, my first 737 in 6 years on Malaysia Airlines, will be published only in January 2025 after reports on two Emirates A380 flights that I took in July and hope to publish within December 2024. I’d prefer to begin 2025 with a new beginning — my report on dispelling the fear of flying the 737 — and conclude 2024 with a bang with the EK A380 reports.

So I spent 48 hours in Jakarta in June… all to fly another KLM fifth-freedom

I’ll cut out all the backstory of the previous instalment, because goodness knows how long it already is with the pictures alone, never mind the whole reasoning behind why I embarked on this trip in the first place. TL;DR: Big 7-airline trip across Northeast Asia (without leaving any airport) cancelled; small trip to Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur booked for mid-June 2024, with three aims. 

1. Fly the Garuda Indonesia A330-900neo from Singapore to Jakarta, given how rare a plane it is otherwise in the Garuda fleet. Check!
2. After two days, fly KLM Royal Dutch Airlines’ fifth-freedom route from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur on the 787-9. Check! (this flight)
3. After a few hours, fly the MH 737-800 — after 6 years and 6 days of avoiding 737s — to Johor Bahru near Singapore. Check!

(This was more of conquering a fear of flying the 737, compounded after the MAX crashes in 2018–19, than anything else. Since then I’ve also managed to fly the Singapore Airlines 737 MAX in November 2024, to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. For a heavily pro-A320 and -A350 Airbus aficionado like me, that’s no mean feat.)

Now the first time I flew on KLM was on another fifth-freedom route, from Singapore to Denpasar (Bali) in early June 2023… and I won’t be exaggerating at all when I say that that was my favourite of all my 27 flights in 2023. The simple reason that it was operated by PH-BVD, a 777-300ER in the SkyTeam livery — being the first time I flew on this alliance — was momentous enough. But it was also my first flight to not only Indonesia but also the Southern Hemisphere as a whole, and suffice it to say that many firsts were made on that flight. 

For the uninitiated, a fifth-freedom route (which I’m abbreviating as FFR for short — only I’m using it here; this isn’t universal) is one where an airline, in this case KLM, from one country (the Netherlands) carries passengers exclusively between two other countries. While all KLM flights originate from Amsterdam, I’ve used it to fly exclusively within Southeast Asia — I’ve never been outside Asia! — with the overall routing being AMS–KUL–CGK for KL809 and back for KL810, and similarly AMS–SIN–DPS for KL835 and back for KL836.

In fact, to date, all my flights to and from Indonesia (2023 and 2024) have been only on Garuda and KLM, SkyTeam carriers both! I flew two blissful Garuda A330-300s in June 2023, from Denpasar to Jakarta and onwards to Singapore, and the even more tranquil GA A330-900neo in June 2024, as in the previous report. The only other time I’ve flown on SkyTeam, the least fancied of the three alliances — and certainly the least useful to me overall — is on a Vietnam Airlines 787-10 at the very end of 2023; I’ll be flying them again on the A321 in January 2025.

Note that KLM launched its new ‘Travel Well’ campaign in 2024, along with a slightly refreshed logo featuring a new corporate typeface, Universal Sans. However, most of the branding remains unchanged and continues to use the Noa font, as above, which was introduced in 2011 and remains strongly associated with the airline.

Some background on KLM’s chopping and changing its Asian fifth-freedom flights (non-avgeeks may find it hard to read)

Being the avgeek I am, it was only but natural that this time I wrap up my two days in the Indonesian capital by flying KLM’s FFR to its Malaysian counterpart, having been highly impressed by them the first time around. Today KL835/836 on the Singapore (SIN)–Denpasar (DPS) route and KL809/810 on Kuala Lumpur (KUL)–Jakarta (CGK) are two of only three FFRs that Royal Dutch Airlines has left, the third being in South America: KL701/702 on Buenos Aires (EZE)–Santiago (SCL). This comes after a fourth such route, KL445/446 on Kuwait City (KWI)–Bahrain (BAH), was terminated in October 2023, with Kuwait also seeing Lufthansa and British Airways exit the country. (KLM doesn’t have fifth-freedom rights on on the Taipei (TPE)–Manila (MNL) KL807/808 route, or on some of its East African and Caribbean triangular routes — some of them within the same country, like Colombia or Tanzania — which must be boarded to or from Amsterdam.)

In fact, KLM used to operate far more East Asian FFRs until 2022–23, such as KL833/834 and KL839/840 (AMS–SIN–KUL), terminated in October 2022, and KL837/838 (AMS–SIN–CGK), terminated in October 2023. More to the point, Africa’s largest airline and Star Alliance member Ethiopian Airlines — as I flew in both directions in 2023 — is today the only fifth-freedom airline between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur: a route that it resumed in March 2023, a few months after KLM exited it. (Similarly, Bahraini flag carrier Gulf Air has now exited the Singapore to Bangkok (BKK) fifth-freedom service — as I flew in November 2023 — leaving only Cathay Pacific’s FFR on the HKG–BKK–SIN route, launched much more recently, in March 2024.)

Meanwhile there are no fifth-freedom airlines between Singapore and Jakarta, now that KLM no longer operates that one either, with all Singapore flights continuing to Denpasar. It used to be that the 5x-weekly AMS–SIN–DPS KL835/836 service during the summer months would alternate with the 2x-weekly AMS–SIN–CGK KL837/838. But in October 2022, KL809/810 between Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta was relaunched until March 2023, and in October 2023 it was made permanent year-round, with all Jakarta service going via the Malaysian capital and not Singapore. In fact, until 2023 KLM even operated KL805/806 from KUL to Manila, which is now served via Taipei as KL807/808 instead. As for Bangkok, which used to have many connecting legs before, KLM now just has the terminating KL843/844 (until Oct. 2024, KL875/876) sector, with no onward flights. For many of you, that’s a lot of alphabet soup that you might struggle to understand.

One thing, however, needs no effort to understand at all: KL810 was a total comedy of errors, with a strangely messed-up 787. In stark contrast to the excellence that Royal Dutch Airlines nailed the previous June to Denpasar, this leg between the Indonesian and Malaysian capitals could have been so much better than it actually was. The entertainment system was not at its 100%, and the moving map and safety video had gone kaput — much like the previous Garuda A330-900neo flight! Moreover, the food was quite underwhelming, and the mood lighting was rather purply-orange like Thai Airways, instead of being the shade of sky blue that KLM, the world’s oldest operating airline, has trademarked for itself. The one good thing I can say about KL810 is the friendly European service, and, of course, the Holland Herald magazine — the oldest one of a dwindling number of inflight glossies. Anyway, time to get to the ‘meat’ of the report — ironic, since this flight had just the one vegetarian option, a very spicy and underwhelming one at that!

‘It is always great to be able to experience a European airline without the need to travel far, especially with these 5th freedom flights being so few nowadays. In fact, KLM may be the only European airline still offering 5th freedom flights within South-east Asia (SIN–DPS and KUL–CGK), with the rest of the European airlines preferring codeshares rather than operating their own aircraft on continuing short sectors. Hopefully these KLM flights survive the cut-throat competition and remain in the future.’ - Report on the SIN–DPS–SIN route from 2017 on the SQTalk forums

Jakarta is not a city: it’s a monstro-megamallopolis (and I love that!)

Sunday, 16 June, 2:30pm. It’s only proper that I begin at the massive retail complex in western Jakarta, consisting of three of the country’s largest and grandest malls: Mal Taman Anggrek, one of the tallest and oldest shopping complexes in the country, along with Central Park (my favourite of the three) and Neo Soho, the newest one. Having never visited the Indonesian capital properly before, I’d come to Central Park the previous day, never mind the rain, and was so taken in by the sweeping, picturesque, panoramic city views that I simply HAD to come here again before I left.

I get it, big malls are not for everyone, but for me they put me into a different plane of zen and calm… okay, okay, I’ll stop rambling and cut to the chase, and before long this report will be on its way to the airport.

Anyway, Central Park quickly became one of my new favourite malls in Southeast Asia outside Singapore, alongside the grandiloquent Lotte Mall Hanoi West Lake — that one will always remain at the top of my mind — and a few in Kuala Lumpur like Mid Valley Megamall, as well as IOI City Putrajaya (the world’s third-largest retail complex!) which I visited the following day.

Below are some snapshots from the vast dining area at the basement, and a healthy bowl from SaladStop, a Singapore-based chain which later expanded to Jakarta.

The atrium itself was more than enough to bowl me over with awe, as I’d visited the previous evening, along with the neighbouring Neo Soho mall — smaller but hipper (connected by a sky bridge) — as part of the gigantic Podomoro City retail/commercial complex. I should probably be staying here next time… and indeed there were plenty of Airbnbs when I searched!

Now I headed out of the mall and towards my serviced apartment in the southeast of the city, near the secondary Halim Perdanakusuma (HLP) airport, before starting out for the main airport, Soekarno–Hatta (CGK), in the far northwest in the suburb of Tangerang. Through the tinted windows of the Gojek ride-hailing car, I took in the sheer magnificence and grandeur of the entire Podomoro City complex: a sign of just how mega-developed Jakarta has become in terms of glitzy buildings (though maybe not in terms of human welfare and ecology!).

Here’s the nearby Mal Ciputra, one of the oldest shopping centres, which along with Mal Taman Anggrek is a well-established name in the Jakarta retail scene. Then came a university and some graffiti (all in Bahasa, of course — this isn’t the most anglicised city in Southeast Asia), giving way once again to rows and rows of towering buildings.

This interestingly shaped tower here is the headquarters of BNI, one of the country’s largest state-owned banks. I tell you, when it comes to the sheer immensity of its urban sprawl, even Singapore and its famed Downtown Core/Marina Bay business district doesn’t match the utter vastness that the Indonesian capital has.

It’s the polar opposite of the laidback charm of the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, as I visited around New Year’s Eve/Day 2023–24 — though the Lotte Mall there spared no expense when it came to upping the luxury quotient! (Jakarta has a Lotte Mall too, which I also visited on this day, but it’s rather sparsely occupied and has mostly Korean-themed attractions.)

Some respite from the big buildings… but not for too long

At 3:45 I’d collected my luggage from the reception, and was ready to head to Soekarno–Hatta International Airport. For the record, the displayed price of IDR 101,500 is not even S$9 or US$7 at current exchange rates — talk about a cheap way to travel 35+ km to the airport!

Once again I stopped by the little KFC at the ground floor of the apartment. On the TV, then as now, were a number of Indonesian music videos, with this one featuring a little girl called Mylene in a yellow dress singing with her friends — which I also saw when I landed here two evenings before, weary and tired after 2.5 hours in traffic. (This song’s name is Selamat Pagi Dunia: Good Morning World.)

From the nearby Lawson convenience store I grabbed an iced coffee for the measly sum of IDR 12,000, and as the car arrived, I walked out past the Starbucks and the Century pharmacy. Oh, the joys of travelling to a country with a weak currency: everything seems dirt-cheap!

The car was a silver Daihatsu Xenia, a made-for-Indonesia MPV that’s also (and more popularly) sold as the Toyota Avanza not only here but also in several other ASEAN countries — including Malaysia, where it’s called the Perodua Alza instead. With my prepaid data pack almost exhausted, I set out for the airport through some small alleyways with boutique cafés and bungalows that seemed to be at odds with the always-rushing nature of this enormous megalopolis.

A few supermarkets later, I was back on the expressways that sustain the traffic of this manic urban sprawl, listening to songs on my secondary Android phone.

Once again the majestic Podomoro City came into view, and I lost no opportunity to snap at the trifecta of Mal Taman Anggrek/Central Park/Neo Soho as they passed by. They were a central (pun intended) memory of my 48-hour stay in Jakarta, much like Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens Mall had been for Kuala Lumpur in May 2023.

The ride throughout was very smooth and fast, completely devoid of the macet (traffic) two days before that turned my journey from airport to apartment into a 2.5-hour ordeal. Indeed, that was the only time in the 48 hours when the traffic in Jakarta was so awful! For some time I switched off my iPhone as it charged and recouped its storage a bit, while my mobile data was fully exhausted.

As we proceeded further northwest, I spotted a plane landing — a Garuda 737, I suppose — while waiting at a toll plaza, and soon enough an Ibis Styles hotel heralded my arrival at SHIA.

The district of Cengkareng, which lends its name to the airport’s IATA code, CGK — the ICAO one being W-triple-I (like Changi’s W-triple-S) — has a number of luxurious properties and facilities from airport resorts to golf courses. As I approached Terminal 3, which the majority of international airlines use, I zoomed in to catch the airlines at each gate — which I’ve further enlarged below.

So Gate 2 had Asiana Airlines, China Airlines, Etihad, Qantas, Saudia, Thai, Turkish, Uzbekistan (!!!) and Xiamen, while Gate 3 had Egyptair (?!?!), Emirates, JAL, KLM, Malaysia, Oman Air, Saudia (again), ‘Singapura’ Airlines, ‘Srilanka’ [sic] and ‘Vietnam Air’ [sic]. Gate 4 had fewer airlines, like Air Macau, Royal Brunei and TransNusa, and Gate 5 had only Garuda Indonesia and ‘Domestik’. Quite a diverse set of airlines, but much less than even KUL with its range of South Asian and Chinese destinations, let alone BKK and SIN. (Mumbai on IndiGo (6E1601/1602) and Colombo on SriLankan (UL364/365) are the only South Asian destinations served nonstop from Jakarta.)

At length, the Anara airport hotel came into view, and at 4:30 — in just 35 minutes! — I reached the departures driveway of CGK Terminal 3. This zippy ride was in every way the polar opposite of the 2.5-hour bumper-to-bumper traffic-laden journey two days before, and it couldn’t have been much quicker.

CGK Terminal 3 Departures: Punching well above its weight, aesthetics-wise

I’m quite a fan of CGK Terminal 3, both the arrivals — with the domestic arrivals corridors being more artsy and the international ones being more serene — and the vast departures hall, at least before the immigration gates. As I entered there were signs from Emirates, saying ‘over 160 destinations’ and ‘experts at your service’ — but it doesn’t fly the A380 to such a huge airport, even though it does fly it to Denpasar since June 2023.

I proceeded to the check-in counters for my flight, KL810 to Amsterdam via Kuala Lumpur — as the large, can’t-miss signs proclaimed. I dropped my luggage and finished the entire process in a matter of minutes, and then proceeded to roam around the terminal.

For the record, the only nonstop flight between Jakarta and Amsterdam is GA88/89, a 777-300ER service on flag carrier and SkyTeam partner Garuda Indonesia, which is now down to only twice weekly — and is the only reasonable way to fly GA’s now-extremely-limited first-class product, universally acclaimed in its heyday of the mid-2010s, but it severely plummeted postpandemic.

This, for the record, was the email KLM had sent asking me to check in, with cheery flight attendants seemingly wishing a Goedenavond (good evening) from their aisles. Over at Flightradar24, most of the recent arrivals were naturally PK-registered domestic aircraft, but there were some foreign ones like 777-300ERs from Saudia and Emirates, an ANA 787-9 and a Qatar A350-900.

Meanwhile PH-BHL, my 787-9, had recently departed Kuala Lumpur on the inbound KL809 and would reach Jakarta in an hour’s time, while the SIN–CGK corridor remained busy with an SQ A350 and a Garuda A330-900neo (PK-GHG) in the ‘Ayo Pakai Masker’ livery.

Saudia and Turkish Airlines were two of the longhaul airlines with their check-in open at this time. Given the high importance of Hajj flights at Jakarta, SV has three daily Jeddah services, SV816/817, SV818/819 and SV826/827, as well as SV820/821 to Medina, while SkyTeam partner Garuda Indonesia and low-cost carrier Lion Air operate services to both JED and MED with varying flight numbers — though there’s nothing between Jakarta and Riyadh, until maybe Riyadh Air does something when it launches.

TK, meanwhile, has a single daily TK56/57 service from Istanbul to Jakarta, though Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are served 14 times weekly — with TK168/169 continuing from Singapore to Melbourne, and, since 29 November 2024, TK174/175 continuing from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney. These are the first-ever Australian services of the Star Alliance member that proudly boasts of serving the most countries in the world, and in a couple of years’ time ultra-long-range aircraft will make even nonstop IST–SYD/MEL services possible!

For its part, SQ now has 8 daily Jakarta services since November 2024, and indeed is the preferred choice for many well-heeled aristocrats and jetsetters who think nothing of splurging on its premium products — CGK is the only Southeast Asian city with first class on SQ — and leave the poor, struggling Garuda Indonesia, long fallen from its mid-2010s heyday, in the lurch.

Now I turned away from the check-in counters and decided to stroll through the F&B and retail offerings. Before the immigration counters, CGK T3 has a wide range of F&B options both local and global, but once you cross immigration and go downstairs, the quality drops considerably. I also passed by the check-in counters for Citilink, Garuda Indonesia’s low-cost subsidiary, which tends to be more profitable than the parent.

Some more F&B outlets in the departure area, including local brands like Solaria and AlfaExpress… and then, boom, a Mercedes sedan and van in the central atrium, as part of a Changi-esque sweepstake!

Cute shopping and unhealthy eating: A summery Sunday evening at CGK airport

All of a sudden, I chanced upon a small curio shop selling cute knick-knacks, and I knew at once that I simply HAD to buy at least a handful of these lovely little things, as some flatmates’ and friends’ birthdays were round the corner.

In no time I’d bought some souvenirs carrying the distinctive illustration style of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — fitting indeed, given that I’d seen a Little Prince exhibition at Changi T3 barely two days before!

This done, I strolled past some of the other retail options, including high-end restaurants like Sate Khas Senayan and Putu Made, and also came across a self-service telekom kiosk of Tri (Three) and a manned booth of Telkomsel, the country’s largest — and prettiest-looking! — telco that’s partly owned by Singtel.

At length, near the leftmost end of the terminal, I arrived at Tous Les Jours, a bakery chain owned by Korean conglomerate CJ Group that’s present in several ASEAN countries but not in Singapore or Malaysia. (Paris Baguette, another Korean-owned French-themed bakery, is present all over Singapore.) It was running a couple of strawberry-themed promotions for beating the summer heat, and here too I greedily tapped my credit card and made my way with a strawberry milkshake and a couple of tasty buns.

At the left end of the terminal — one that’s marginally bigger than even Changi T3 — came the international departure corridor, and before that an outlet of A&W, the fast-food chain. While it does have some branches in Singapore, they’re mostly in heartland areas and not near the centre, so I thought to myself, ‘Might as well go all-out here — waistline and calorie control be damned! When will I pay low Indonesian prices again?’

Before long I was munching on some of the unhealthiest fast food possible from both Tous Les Jours and A&W, having bought a mango chicken wrap and criss-cut fries from the latter, while reading a book on my iPad. At the nearby tables were some unusually well-behaved children with their parents — a rarity at airports, a setting that usually induces small kids to scream the loudest they can!

As far as Flightradar24 was concerned, there were two Star Alliance arrivals from Bangkok: a Thai Airways A350 as TG435 and, more interestingly, an Ethiopian 787-9 as ET628! (I flew that exact plane, ET-AUO, from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur in July 2023.) Additionally PK-GHE, the A330-900neo that I’d flown on the previous leg as GA829 from Singapore, had now landed as GA875 from Tokyo Haneda. There were also a Turkish A350 (TC-LGK, one of the four ex-Aeroflot models) as TK56*, and a JAL 767-300ER (JA608J) as JL725, while my 787-9 was on final descent — and landed shortly enough.

*So many airlines have their flights to Jakarta ending with 56 — be it Turkish TK56, Emirates EK356, Qatar QR956 or Singapore SQ956… (Qatar’s three flights to CGK, QR954/955, 956/957 and 958/959, are all matched by Singapore Airlines with the same flight numbers.)

With my most delicious but unhealthy meal out of the way, I now proceeded to the international departure gates, but not without snapping a few more pictures of this underrated and unique building that I wouldn’t mind travelling through again and again. It’s a quantum leap above Delhi T3, that’s for sure!

Before immigration ✅ After immigration ❌

As on my previous transit via CGK in June 2023, only the counters for Indonesian nationals were packed, while those for foreigners were empty — not a soul! I skipped through the process effortlessly and headed down to the high-ceilinged departure gates… and I hate the high ceilings at Changi T3 and Suvarnabhumi, so this is where CGK T3’s quality drops several notches. Well, at least there’s a broad diversity of aircraft, and this time was no different, with Gate 9 — where my plane, PH-BHL, was now parked — located bang next to the escalator.

Truth be told, the lower departure level is shorn of most retail amenities that make a good terminal — quite the opposite of BKK, where the check-in and immigration counters are as ugly as the departure concourse is filled with all manner of luxury shops (but those don’t make the architecture much better: BKK is the ugliest major hub in Southeast Asia!). Still, even though the retail outlets were a bit lacking, architecture-wise CGK T3 was still very distinctive with its triangularly tessellated (high!) ceilings, and the seating and charging facilities were plentiful too.

There stood Lelie, or Lily: KLM names its 787s (both -9s, PH-BH* series, and -10s, PH-BK* series) after flowers, in the same way that 777-200ERs (PH-BQ*) are named after UNESCO World Heritage Sites, 777-300ERs (PH-BV*) after national parks, 737s (PH-BC*/BG*/BX*/HS*) after birds and A330s (both -200s, PH-AO*, and -300s, PH-AK*) after piazzas and squares. Most recently, the new A321neos (PH-AX* series) are named after… wait for it… insects — no, not all insects: specifically butterflies!

Next door stood TC-LGK, one of 17 A350s with the brand-new Collins Aerospace Horizons business-class suite product: four for Turkish Airlines (TC-LGI–LGL), six for Air India (VT-JRA, JRB, JRE, JRF, JRH, JRI) and seven for its original operator, Aeroflot (RA-73151–73157). Most recently, Korean Air has introduced it on its 787-10s, the first few of which are registered HL8515, HL8535–8538 and HL8572. (South Korean aircraft registrations are chronological, ordered by the time of delivery, irrespective of airline or model… I digress.)

At this point I compressed and deleted a few photos to save space, as I constantly keep doing, and this time the featured image was from my Vietnam Airlines 787-10 flight, my last of 2023 — in fact, the exact same as the cover image for the corresponding flight report! Meanwhile a Qantas A330-200, VH-EBP, had landed as QF41 from Sydney, which would soon be followed by VH-EBR as QF39 from Melbourne. Sadly, spotting them would prove to be impossible thanks to the rain on the plane windows! 😢

On my part, I had a charming little WhatsApp conversation with my mom on the topic of gifts, with all Bengali messages translated in the picture below. And, as you can see from that E symbol in the top corner, the so-called ‘Wi-Shock’ Wi-Fi had a bad habit of disconnecting every so often — a big headache since I’d run out of mobile data.

In short order, boarding was announced, and before very long I found myself on Lily — a pretty name, and a common name for girls, but one that did nothing to reveal all that was wrong with ‘her’ hard product!

Interestingly there was an RFID QR code identifying this aircraft at the top of the doorway — something I’d never seen before.

Mercifully, the SkyTeam logo hadn’t been removed from the cockpit as Air France and KLM have recently been doing with many of their aircraft. There was an additional SkyTeam logo beside the passenger door (à la Oneworld), partly obscured by the jetbridge; the Garuda A330-900neo did not have that. It will, however, be only a matter of time before, sadly, the only sign of the world’s oldest airline belonging to the world’s youngest major airline alliance will be moved to the very back — out of sight and out of mind!

The flight: Boarding and departure

Flight: KLM Royal Dutch Airlines KL810/KLM810
Date: Sunday, 16 June 2024
Route: Jakarta Soekarno–Hatta (WIII/CGK) to Kuala Lumpur International (WMKK/KUL)
Aircraft: PH-BHL, Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, named Lelie or Lily
Age: 6 years 11 months at the time (built: 10 July 2017, delivered: 19 July 2017)
Seat: 34K (starboard side, window)
Boarding: 7:05pm WIB, UTC +7 (8:05pm MYT, UTC +8)
Departure: 7:35pm WIB (8:35pm MYT)
Arrival: 10:20pm MYT (9:20pm WIB)
Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes

Notes:
• Second flight on KLM and sixth overall on SkyTeam, with the first, in June 2023, being the first flight on the alliance itself: from Singapore to Denpasar on PH-BVD, a 777-300ER coincidentially in SkyTeam livery.
This was immediately followed by a pair of Garuda Indonesia A330-300s (DPS–CGK–SIN) with their own special stickers, and at the end of December came a Vietnam Airlines 787-10, the final of 27 flights in 2023. Two days before this flight, KL810, came the previous flight, GA829 (PK-GHE, A330-900neo), from Singapore to Jakarta.

• Fourth flight on the 787-9 Dreamliner, with the others being on Thai Airways (BKK–MAA) in December 2022, Ethiopian Airlines (SIN–KUL) in July 2023 and non-alliance carrier Gulf Air (BKK–SIN) in November 2023 — the last of which was my first 787 outside the Star Alliance (AI, SQ, TG, ET)!
(However, GF discontinued its BKK–SIN fifth-freedom service on 27 October 2024, instead increasing its frequencies from Bahrain to Singapore.)

• First flight between Indonesia and Malaysia, not involving Singapore, and also the first fifth-freedom flight not to involve Singapore! (The second was in November 2024, on a Qatar Airways 777-300ER (A7-BAN, no Qsuite — instead, the ancient 2-2-2 MiniPod!) from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.)

The cabin is not so much blue as it’s purple…

An European airline is bound to have a premium-economy product on almost all of its widebody aircraft, which the likes of Qatar Airways still struggle to introduce. All too often I find myself walking through a business-class mini-cabin after turning right from the door — as on SQ or TG — but not KLM, whose ‘Premium Comfort’ seats are in a 2-3-2 configuration in a 3-row mini-cabin. Then came the economy seats in their standard 3-3-3 layout.

In my experience, 787s (except SQ’s 787-10s) almost never have row numbers exceeding 50 — something that I always try to choose if possible — and so the best I could do, with my general preference for a right-hand K-seat by the window, was 34K. Unlike my previous Garuda A330-900neo flight, there is not a trace of the KLM or SkyTeam logos anywhere; instead you’re just given the seat number and 12 different languages (no Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia, sorry!).

As the mood lighting turned a surprising shade of SQ-eSQue (ha!) purple, I had a brief glance at the entertainment selection on offer. Of course, this being a Western airline, there was the full complement of movie and TV offerings, though I had no appetite for any of them and instead headed straight for the moving map. I was in for a nasty surprise: the details never loaded — and the map remained frozen throughout the flight! Bummer…

Anyway, what with KLM being the world’s oldest operating airline and all, I felt it would be better to instead have a look at its glorious history, from past to present, with PH-BVD in the SkyTeam colours —as I’d flown the previous year — occupying pride of place. Meanwhile, a Qantas A330-200 was pulling out of the gate, one of the two flights mentioned above, but neither could I track which one it was (due to having no mobile data left) nor did the rain-streaked windows allow me to see anything outside! (Full resolution here.)

Anyway, this wasn’t the typical SQ or TG with no literature besides the safety card and duty-free magazine. Instead, the full-fledged Holland Herald — the world’s oldest inflight magazine (like the airline itself!) — was present in the pocket, and this at least helped me pass the time as boarding continued. (Full resolution here.)

There was, for instance, a full-blown feature on Taipei, which KLM remains the only European airline to serve — hence the dedicated ‘KLM Asia’ stickers on some 777s (seven -200ERs and one -300ER, PH-BVB), though these don’t usually fly to TPE — long after Lufthansa, Air France and others, with different names and stickers on the fuselage, stopped flying there. KLM’s SkyTeam partner China Airlines, the Taiwanese flag carrier, also serves Amsterdam but not Paris.

Indeed, European service to TPE is still somewhat limited, with China Airlines having the only nonstop flights to London and Frankfurt, as well as Rome and Prague. Meanwhile EVA Air flies nonstop from TPE to Paris, Milan and Munich, but its flights to London and Amsterdam go via Bangkok — and Vienna is served both nonstop and via BKK! (Full resolution here.)

Now the mood lighting turned a deep hue of purple-blue in the centre and reddish-orange by the windows, not very different from Thai Airways’ pink-purple-orange colours, though these were closer to a darker version of KLM’s blue and the Dutch national colour of orange. Inexplicably, there was no safety video on this aircraft — in fact, the previous Garuda flight didn’t have it either! And that similarity would also extend to the moving map…

I’d enjoyed the distinctive KLM safety video, themed on blue Delft tiles, on my first KLM flight to Denpasar, so to not be able to see it this time around was another bummer. Not that the windows were in any way relenting either, and it was more than enough to prevent clear images of the pair of Qantas A330s that were now pulling out of the gate, for which I had only my naked eye to rely upon.

Interestingly, most of my fifth-freedom flights have been no more than 30% full — be it on Ethiopian Airlines, Gulf Air or most recently Qatar Airways (from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City), virtually guaranteeing a block of three empty seats. However, this has never been the case on KLM, and while my flight to Denpasar in June 2023 was almost entirely full, this one too was more than 80% packed — with most of the passengers presumably headed all the way to Amsterdam.

At least the rest of the IFE was more or less functional as far as the various entertainment sections were concerned. The mood lighting briefly turned all-white for the safety demo before reverting to those funky shades. I managed to spot the registration of one of the Red Roos: VH-EBR, in the 2007 livery, pulling out as QF40 to Melbourne, with VH-EBP behind in the new 2016 livery.

As the taxiing continued, an eye-popping Garuda 737-800 appeared: this was PK-GFI in the Livin’ by Mandiri special livery, promoting the state-owned Bank Mandiri’s lifestyle app evidently targeting millennials. Sadly this special scheme was removed in September 2024, though sister-ship PK-GFJ has a different Livin’ by Mandiri colour scheme, but not as catchy as this one! Further along, I noticed two parked Garuda 777-300ERs, one at the gate (beside the TK A350) and the other at a remote stand, as we proceeded to the runway.

Here’s a couple of pictures to show how the glamorous Livin’ by Mandiri livery looks — ahem, looked — like: too bad this does not exist any more!

Eventually the GEnx engines spooled up and revved and whirred down the Soekarno–Hatta runway, with a retro-liveried Garuda 777 (PK-GIK) and countless Citilink Pelita Air A320s on the side… until PH-BHL finally lifted off from this remarkably underrated airport at the northwestern corner of the world’s most populous island, the mood lighting at its Blauw en Oranje best (though still too much like TG for my liking!) — though I’d seen only the start of the numerous slip-ups on this nearly 2-hour-long flight from (current) the Indonesian capital to the Malaysian!

Everything is working — except the Wi-Fi, safety video, moving map and goodness knows what else…

All my attempts to connect to KLM’s onboard Wi-Fi network were in vain. I mean, I was able to actually connect as far as the login page, and indeed the maps showed full coverage on this flight, but getting a proper Internet connection — even for the free messaging plan for WhatsApp — proved elusive, and so it would remain throughout the flight. The problems — thankfully all minor inconveniences at worst — were only just beginning on KL810!

While none of the live data in the moving map worked, there were plenty of destination previews on offer with full HD photos, with both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur (though not Jakarta) well represented by way of famous landmarks and must-sees. Still, this was nowhere close, in terms of destination details, to the absolute perfection that Cathay Pacific’s 4K-clarity A321neo has.

There were, however, a couple of quotes from travel magazines/websites for the below destinations. (Emphasis mine.)
Singapore: A pristine, futuristic shrine to consumerism. — Rough Guides
Kuala Lumpur: Everywhere you turn there is something to see and do in KL. — Travel + Leisure

Meanwhile Jakarta is not exactly a touristy place, certainly not with its megalomaniac traffic and pollution!

Before long I had resorted to venting my frustration on the little misses and slip-ups that even aircraft as advanced as the 787 Dreamliner and A330-900neo had done. At least the Garuda A330neo flight was all-around excellent save for the lack of the moving map, but this one’s connectivity and charging proved to be a bit more dysfunctional… even the cabin-crew call button and reading-light button had gone kaput! Not to mention the in-seat charging as well… oh, KLM!

Anyway, I perused the Holland Herald magazine, and once again (the same as in the June 2023 issue) it was the aging 777-200ER fleet that was the spotlight of the month. European airlines’ 777-200ERs, from Austrian to Air France to British Airways, are miles and miles better than Asian airlines’ 777-200ERs — as my woes with Thai Airways 777-200ERs, most recently both to and from Bengaluru in August 2024, are proof of. (At least I was able to break that jinx in November 2024 with the A350 from BLR.)

Moreover, KLM’s new ‘Travel Well’ campaign was in full swing, and, as you might imagine, the SkyTeam logo had been scrubbed out of sight from those ads, now featuring KLM’s new Universal Sans corporate font. That said, Flying Blue and SkyTeam still did get two-page spreads of their own — this was before Scandinavian Airlines switched from the Star Alliance in September — in addition to KLM’s Wings of Support charity. (Full resolution here.)

Shortly the cabin crew came around with the meal, and there was but a single vegetarian option for everyone — none of the typical ‘chicken or fish’ questions that Western airlines usually have. As with the 2023 Denpasar flight, this too was North Indian in nature, except vegetarian instead of chicken: a chana (chickpea) pulao with a potato curry. To go with it was some sort of cold potato salad, and dessert took the form of a chocolate brownie cake, all served with tissue-wrapped metal cutlery and a cup of what else but Sprite. (Thankfully, there was no dry bread roll and butter, which all too many airlines have, and unnecessarily.)

Sounds good in theory? Well, I’m afraid the meal was as underwhelming as the connectivity and moving maps: the biryani rice was intolerably spicy — then again, I have an extremely low threshold for spice — and the chana, as I noted, was ‘like fire’. The potato salad was bland, and as for the brownie, it stuck to the plastic lid, requiring a good deal of scraping to get it off. To put it in Dutch, the meal was a grote teleurstelling (big disappointment). I didn’t expect this from an airline as global and renowned as KLM!

These were my comments as the meal progressed, while I listened to some pop hit from Zara Larsson, Ammunition from her Venus album in particular: something I’d also be repeating on loop on yet another TG 777-200ER to Bengaluru — yes, yes, even that flying fossil/relic had this song — in August. (As an aside, I, being detail-obsessed by nature, noted that the Swedish musician turned exactly 26.5 years old on the day of this flight, being born in December 1997!)

How can you redeem yourself after that, um, ‘out-standing’ meal, KLM?

As Larsson — with that ethereal Aphrodite-esque nude cover image of hers — crooned ‘I wanna give us a shot, please / Give me, give me, give me ammunition’ in the pleasing key of E major, I had a glance at the rest of the audio selection on offer.

Noteworthy were some of the Dutch artists, one of the more out-there and head-turning covers being a topless picture of one Irene Hin — never heard of her (most people haven’t) — for an album entitled Achtbaan. If nothing else, this was a good way of highlighting Dutch pop culture and spotlighting some lesser-known artists in front of a global audience. (Full resolution here.)

These, for the record, were the recent releases for the month, of which I recognised none except the sole Indian movie of the lot: Jersey (2022), a cricketing drama — man must abandon the game for family’s sake only to return to it later — that was itself a remake of a Telugu film (2019) of the same name.

Now I came to the most interesting (to me) section of the lot, entitled ‘KLM tv’ with tv in lowercase. What SkyTeam partner Vietnam Airlines had done with its own corporate videos in a most earnest and we-don’t-have-big-brand-recognition-but-we-have-a-big-heart manner, KLM did with its eccentrically unique Dutch take on sustainability, a pilot’s life, landing in the dark and simply the joys of travel — something that only a Western, highly anglicised airline can do. (Full resolution here.)

Below are only some of the airline videos that KLM had to offer; there are more in the Tourism Bonus section at the end.

Naturally, with Schiphol Airport’s (thankfully scrapped) plans to curtail flights in the name of greenwashing — just look at all the articles OMAAT has published on AMS’ eco-shenanigans — there was a big emphasis on flying sustainably. For a European airline, that’s only to be expected, but I doubt most other parts of the world (certainly not the US from January!) will be as concerned as Europe. Meanwhile we were already flying over the Malaysian peninsula, giving some great nighttime views of the lit-up roads.

I opened the latest ‘Travel Well’ ad, and it was very well done, as you’d expect from an airline whose goal is to bridge countries and cultures across a century. Kudos to KLM for staying true to its ethos of being an approachable, unifying force, instead of aspiring for SQ or QR — heck, even its joined-at-the-hip partner Air France — levels of luxury.

Night landings and the Petronas Twin Towers on descent!

Since we were all about to land in the dark of night, I coincidentially found a video on the very same topic, with two pilots explaining how they performed a landing in Kilimanjaro (JRO), Tanzania — as part of the triangular AMS–JRO–DAR–AMS rotation also involving Dar-es-Salaam, the African country’s largest city. The pilots were named Thijs and Dimitri, and astonishingly enough two different friends named Thijs and Dimitri were also featured in the magazine — what a coincidence! (Full resolution here.)

Here’s a bit more of the music selection on landing, especially the lo-fi beats from various YouTube channels that have gained rapid popularity in recent times. Again, a very innovative step and one you wouldn’t usually expect on a plane — then again, KLM is nothing if not innovative!

As we were on final descent, disinfectant was sprayed in the cabins, and while there were mercifully no crying babies, there were a few little boys in the front and back who were chattering nonstop.

As if to ease the what-could-hve-been feeling on this largely subpar flight, I was now treated to a magnificent view of the Kuala Lumpur skyline, with the Petronas Twin Towers clearly visible! This, more than anything else, would be the best finishing touch to my otherwise below-par second flight on Royal Dutch Airlines.

As the airport is a long way south of Kuala Lumpur, the 787 hovered for a bit more over the brilliantly luminous airport roads before finally coming to land at shortly after a quarter past ten.

As you might imagine, longhaul arrivals were few and far between at this hour, including an Emirates 777, an Etihad 787 and — surprisingly enough — and Air New Zealand A321neo which had clearly come here for maintenance, given the flight number, as the airline doesn’t serve KUL otherwise. Also present was a Sichuan Airlines A321neo from Chengdu–Tianfu.

The mood lighting, which had been completely darkened for landing, soon returned to the purply-blue and orange shades during the post-arrival announcement, before being restored to the full white as passengers started to disembark. Meanwhile I was able to take much better pictures of the magazine’s about-us/information pages — including the awfully tacky routemaps —  than was possible with the dim lighting earlier. (Full resolution here.)

As I prepared to leave the aircraft, I chuckled at the Wi-Fi signs, an indication for something that turned out to be completely dysfunctional. When I wished one of the female flight attendants a ‘great evening back to Amsterdam’, she replied, ‘We’re staying here for the night — a different crew is going to Amsterdam!’ Fair enough, since the inbound crews would much rather have some rest than work another 12-hour sector immediately after.

With a Malaysia A330-300 for company at the adjacent gate, I thanked the cabin crew and stepped off Lily or Lelie — a plane that turned out to be a bit less than the sum of its parts, thanks to the multiple slip-ups. Nevertheless, this was by no means a horrible flight, just a mildly irritating one, and I wouldn’t hesitate to fly KLM’s fifth-freedoms again, or even the long journey to Amsterdam.

Another adventure awaits after arrival

KLIA’s arrival hall is very much like Changi’s, in the sense that arriving and departing passengers use the same corridors — and unlike most other airports, including BKK and CGK. Many were boarding MH123 to Sydney at the next gate, adding to the rush. To its credit, KLIA took the effort to put up a number of travel posters on the walls, highlighting the various provinces — from Negeri Sembilan to Sarawak to Kelantan — and showing that the country is more than just Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Langkawi and (for Singaporeans in particular) Johor Bahru.

This being the satellite terminal, which is used by most longhaul flights, I needed to go down a level to the bus gates to catch a bus to the main terminal. The Aerotrain connecting the main and satellite terminals was given a three-year maintenance break in March 2023, and so these buses are the only way to travel between the two.

For that matter, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport recently opened its own satellite terminal, called SAT-1, which has a proper Changi-like train system to commute between the main and satellite terminals. My transits at BKK in August and November 2024 were at SAT-1, and I used the people-mover train in the former case. However, in November, the inbound and onward flights used the same plane at the same gate!

On going down a level, a few traditional-looking hawker shops caught my eye, designed in the classic Chinese, Indian and Malay styles. An authentic touch at an otherwise busy regional hub.

In no time I was on a bus, and on my way to the main terminal, with closeup views of the planes — especially my 787 and some MH A330s — that I’d also enjoyed on my Ethiopian flights to and from KUL in 2023. Also on board was a senior male KLM cabin crew, going by the black blazer that he wore and the numerous badges that he sported.

There weren’t that many interesting sights compared to my previous bus rides at KLIA. Below you see a bit of a Turkish 777-300ER and a China Eastern A330-200 that had landed a short while ago, and then 9M-MXC, an MH 737-800 in the Oneworld colours.

Notably, MH is one of very few members of the alliance which paint the Oneworld logo on the right side of the aircraft, where passengers do not board — with Iberia the only other current example, as S7 Airlines will remain suspended for a long time and LATAM quit the group.

Some time after I’d informed my family that I’d landed at KUL, my dad wanted to know when I would reach the hotel. Little did I know that I’d have to book a room on the spot as the original one did not accept night check-ins — but that’s a long story for another day.

These were some more of the recent arrivals, with an Air China 737 MAX and a China Eastern A330-200 being the only non-9M/9V aircraft other than ours to have landed recently. In the early evening, an Ethiopian 787-8, a JAL 767-300ER and the above Turkish 777 had landed as well, waiting for their nighttime departures.

Having reached the main terminal, I went up a level to the immigration counters, which again required a series of travellators to get to. This took quite some time to get done, nearly half an hour. In between I wrote my musings on the immigration crowd, which was (again) mostly Chinese, but there were also a Bangladeshi family having arrived on MH from BKK, and a British woman who was constantly sending voice notes on WhatsApp.

At length, I made it to the luggage belts, with my flight, KL810, long having arrived. I went through the construction maze and made it out to the exit doors, with nothing for company except huge ads from CIMB Bank, Visa and the tourism board of Terengganu province, among others.

Bank Mandiri, oddly enough, was present here as well: it’s not often you see Mandiri/BNI/BRI advertising outside Indonesian shores. I somehow managed to put my belongings in order and hauled bag and baggage to the nearest convenience store to get a couple of refreshements.

Then I sat down to write my rather simplistic journal entry for the flight, as the clock approached the stroke of midnight. The below picture summed up the flight: very much below the high expectations that KLM had set for itself the year before, but by no means as all-around horrible as the Air India A320neo to Delhi in February!

With all the high-ceilinged corridors mostly deserted at this hour, there weren’t many options but to go to the airport taxi booth — the Grab app wasn’t able to get any matches — and pay a higher-than-usual sum for a car to a nearby apartment not more than 15 minutes away. I’d intentionally chosen the place because it was close enough to the airport, given its immense 50-km+ distance from Kuala Lumpur proper.

That decision soon backfired because the property did not accept night bookings and security didn’t allow me to enter, leaving me (temporarily) without a room for the night… until I scrabbled around and got a bed in a cheap but well-furnished lodge, paying on the spot!

Anyway, all that aside, it didn’t take long for the car to whoosh past the Mitsui Outlet Park near KLIA, the nearest mega-shopping complex to the airport, whose signs are unmissable.

To finish another of my long-winded reports, here are some of the aircraft on Flightradar24 that I checked (a) on my way to my original apartment, and (b) after checking in to the new lodge, trying to find the planes I’d seen at the apron at Jakarta, and some more that were overflying the skies at that ungodly hour.